[HN Gopher] FreeBSD Laptop Compatibility: Top Laptops to Use wit...
___________________________________________________________________
FreeBSD Laptop Compatibility: Top Laptops to Use with FreeBSD
Author : fork-bomber
Score : 121 points
Date : 2026-04-09 09:17 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (freebsdfoundation.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (freebsdfoundation.github.io)
| spooneybarger wrote:
| That's a very small list.
| badgersnake wrote:
| It's a subset of a subset. The sets being (FreeBSD users (with
| laptops (who can be bothered to write about them on an obscure
| wiki)))
| guenthert wrote:
| Yeah, compare to https://ubuntu.com/certified/laptops it is.
|
| Years ago, there was a project combining Debian with the kernel
| from FreeBSD. That never made sense to me and the project seems
| to have died meanwhile. More sensible, IMHO, might be to bolt
| the FreeBSD user space unto the Linux kernel. That way one
| would get fairly broad and current hardware support and could
| still enjoy a classic Unix look&feel and stable ABI.
| theragra wrote:
| Moreover, many laptops working on Linux perfectly, are not
| Ubuntu certified. Lenovo Legion series generally works well,
| but it is not in the Ubuntu list. Id we'd make a list of all
| 8/10 or more compatible laptops, it would be huge.
| skydhash wrote:
| > More sensible, IMHO, might be to bolt the FreeBSD user
| space unto the Linux kernel.
|
| A lot of BSD utilities that are not POSIX has really close
| interaction with the kernel. OpenBSD's *ctl binaries are
| often the user-facing part of some OS subsystem. Linux
| subsystem often expose a very complex internal that you need
| to use some other project to tame down
| bluGill wrote:
| That is cool in ways, but many manufactures change the internals
| without changing the model number and so I'm not sure how much I
| can trust it. There is a recycled computers place near me that
| will sell me some of those cheap, but how can I be sure the one
| I'm buying is the same as the one tested (if indeed I can find
| any of those model numbers at all - which is a factor of what
| companies near me are recycling this month)
| skydhash wrote:
| I have the latitude 7490 and it worked great with Linux, FreeBSD
| and OpenBSD. The only issue is some hardware design issue where
| lifting it with one hand will cause it to freeze (possibly some
| stress causing a shock or a displacement).
|
| The best resource to check support is
| https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/dmesgd
| shrubble wrote:
| This happened exactly to me also, I suspect some flexing in the
| motherboard or other component; right now it is complaining
| about the RAM and reseating hasn't fixed it. Great laptop
| otherwise however!
| gentile wrote:
| Consider balling up some electrical tape underneath the Ram
| stick. This solved this very specific issue with my laptop that
| was flexing too much and crashing.
| shrubble wrote:
| Between the RAM and the motherboard? Interesting, will try
| it.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| > 9/10
|
| > half of networking doesnt work, and it's the more important one
| for laptop(wifi)
|
| I think they need to revise the scoring
| whalesalad wrote:
| It's fine bro you don't need audio or suspend or Bluetooth or
| WiFi or multi touch. All you need is a serial cable and emacs
| to actually have a good computer experience. Please bro just
| try BSD. It has the ports system.
| fullstop wrote:
| It seems like the best way to get WiFi working in FreeBSD is to
| run Linux in bhyve and tunnel your connections through there.
| whalesalad wrote:
| the fact that this is a widely accepted/encouraged practice
| is genuinely unhinged
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Why? Nothing wrong with running your network interface in a
| VM. There are reasons for doing so even if drivers aren't
| an issue. Qubes OS does this, for instance, for security
| reasons.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| Windows also does. Almost everything is a VM in windows
| these days.
|
| It's just how things work these days. If you'd say "I run
| my VPN client in a docker container" it would raise a lot
| less eyebrows. Yet it's not very different, really.
|
| Though conceptually I'd frown at having to run Linux. I'd
| prefer upgrading the hardware to a supported chip.
| skydhash wrote:
| Not really weird when some firmware are close to being full
| blown OS. An alpine VM can be run with 64 MB which is lower
| than a lot of software.
| fullstop wrote:
| I've used cellular modems which run Linux or ThreadX
| internally.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| FreeBSD 15 has done a lot for WiFi apparently.
|
| I'm not sure how good it is as I don't use wifi but it's
| supposed to be much better.
| yabones wrote:
| That kind of seems crazy to me, considering OpenBSD has
| worked perfectly fine with every wifi capable device I've
| tested it on. Granted, most of them were older machines.
|
| Is this just an artifact of FreeBSD primarily focusing on
| server hardware rather than consumer/end-user stuff?
| cperciva wrote:
| I agree that 9/10 is a bit of a strange score there, but it's
| not all that bad: You can get a $15 wifi dongle and use that
| instead. It occupies a USB port and looks a bit ugly, but it's
| still a fairly easy workaround.
| bluedino wrote:
| Is there a cheap, common USB wifi dongle that works?
|
| In the old days I kept a couple Realtek USB adapters around
| that would almost always work out of the box or with
| ndiswrapper
| sidkshatriya wrote:
| No need to get a USB dongle. You can use PCI passthrough to a
| Linux VM that has the Wifi driver.
|
| See my comment here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47704816
| justin66 wrote:
| That's insanely complicated compared to plugging in a USB
| dongle.
| guzfip wrote:
| FreeBSD WiFi is certainly fun.
|
| Some years ago, I was workig with FreeBSD on an old laptop. The
| laptop had a wireless adapter that ostensible should be
| supported, but was not.
|
| After some digging, I realized the driver was just missing some
| PCIe device identifiers. I added them to driver and bam my WiFi
| is working without issue.
|
| I tried to submit a bug report and patch, and it got positive
| feedback at first any changes even got committed. But then I
| learned why it's better to not even try.
|
| Apparently this was a known issue, but only in the heads of the
| FreeBSD wireless developers. They had their reasons for not
| adding the device, but the reasons did not appear to be
| documented in mailing lists or docs until my thread. At that
| point I realized it's not worth it to try and contribute to
| such large projects as I just lack the decades of institutional
| knowledge of the system.
|
| Anyway, I'm not sure it ever got released. I believe there's an
| umbrella bug somewhere left after the version my patch
| supported went out of support.
| mmsc wrote:
| FreeBSD works perfectly on intel MacBooks if you've got one
| laying around: https://joshua.hu/FreeBSD-on-MacbookPro-114-A1398
| whalesalad wrote:
| Probably not T2 MacBooks though.
| bxparks wrote:
| From the link: "Note: The inbuilt WiFi chip is not natively
| supported by FreeBSD, so you will need to (temporarily) use a
| USB WiFi or Ethernet dongle, or (as I will explain) copy some
| files from a different system to the Macbook. You could also
| just transplant a different chip into the system."
|
| You say "works perfectly". I do not think it means what you
| think it means.
|
| To be fair, Linux also has trouble with the Broadcom chip, the
| driver needs to be installed as a separate step on most
| distros.
| skydhash wrote:
| I think the intersection between BSD users and people who
| will buy a dongle or use Ethernet is a perfect circle.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| > Broadcom
|
| Here's the real problem.
|
| It's sad how a company that spawned the raspberry pi in
| earlier times got so evil so quickly.
| shrubble wrote:
| Every Raspberry Pi ships with a closed source OS, ThreadX,
| that boots Linux, BTW.
| justin66 wrote:
| It's MIT licensed now, which isn't particularly useful
| when it comes to Pi (there's some Broadcom crap in that
| boot loader so it won't be open sourced) but otherwise is
| kind of interesting.
|
| https://github.com/eclipse-threadx
| bityard wrote:
| Broadcom (and to a lesser extent, Realtek) devices had
| always been anywhere between hit-or-miss and completely
| unworkable on Linux, LONG before Raspberry Pi came around.
| mmsc wrote:
| > You say "works perfectly". I do not think it means what you
| think it means.
|
| Copying some files from a different machine is not that
| burdensome. The point is, it works.
| irusensei wrote:
| In my opinion pre alder lake intel is the sweet spot for FreeBSD.
| Not sure about AMD but anything before 2020 should work just
| fine. Just avoid CPUs with heterogenous core configurations for
| now.
| shevy-java wrote:
| Good old FreeBSD - always trying to catch up to Linux.
| jmclnx wrote:
| Glad to see this list, will keep an eye on it !
|
| Now to be fair, in a few ways I think it is ahead. Now if you
| said "catch up to Linux in hardware support" I would fully
| agree.
|
| Last I heard, its VM (swap/memory) processes is still better,
| but seems many Linux people avoid swap space these days. FWIW,
| I always have swap on any system that allows it.
|
| And Jails, IMO nothing on Linux comes close to how good FreeBSD
| Jails is.
| bionsystem wrote:
| Incus is pretty damn good to be fair. You can mix and match
| VMs and containers, the terraform provider "just works", the
| setup is fast and easy, it plays well with ZFS. Now I
| wouldn't be surprised if it still lags jails (or Illumos
| Zones) in robustness or some capabilities but I'm a happy
| user of them now.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| Not really, it's just different. Not trying to be the same,
| which catching up implies.
| olivierestsage wrote:
| It's crazy how much negativity there is in comment threads like
| this. I would get it if FreeBSD was a product you paid for, or
| someone was evangelizing about how you're missing out if you
| don't get the FreeBSD laptop experience, or something.
|
| As someone who liked FreeBSD in the past and curious to check it
| out again, I'm glad to have this handy list.
| stackghost wrote:
| >It's crazy how much negativity there is in comment threads
| like this
|
| I think it's because this chart continues a trend I've noticed
| with BSD zealots. Namely, there's some sort of reality
| distortion effect at play.
|
| Consider that there are obvious bullshit scores on TFA, like
| giving a laptop 9/10 when the fucking wifi doesn't work. In
| reality, this should be 5/10 or arguably 0/10. After all, what
| use is a laptop without wifi? If my laptop's wifi didn't work I
| wouldn't just buy a usb-ethernet adapter and never bring it
| anywhere; I would get a new laptop because a laptop without
| WiFi is useless.
|
| On top of that there was a while here where every BSD thread
| had:
|
| - a comment about how BSD powers the PlayStation, Netflix, and
| other FAANGs, except those corps don't contribute enough back
| because of the license so won't you please subsidize these
| giant corps by donating to BSD?
|
| - people who argue BSD is superior because it's "more cohesive"
| and "feels cleaner" or similar
|
| - OpenBSD zealots claiming it's 110% secure because trust me
| bro
|
| Mostly I'm just tired of people claiming BSD is this amazing
| new thing with no flaws, when reality is that it has got some
| niche use cases, I suspect lots of its developers don't even
| dogfood it, and is otherwise superceded by Linux in nearly
| every meaningful way.
|
| I have no problem with BSD, and I have two boxes in my basement
| running freeBSD right now, but I'm not delusional about BSD's
| limitations.
| asveikau wrote:
| > Mostly I'm just tired of people claiming BSD is this
| amazing new thing
|
| I don't think I've heard anybody claim BSD is new.
|
| > Netflix, and other FAANGs, except those corps don't
| contribute enough back because of the license
|
| I believe Netflix has upstreamed a lot to FreeBSD. They don't
| do it because the license compels them, they do it because
| upstreaming your changes makes maintenance easier.
|
| > If my laptop's wifi didn't work I wouldn't just buy a usb-
| ethernet adapter and never bring it anywhere
|
| I'm going to guess with this rant that you weren't using
| Linux in the olden days, because that's what it was like. The
| workaround isn't using wired ethernet by the way..you can get
| a USB wifi adapter or you can buy an m.2 wifi card. On on one
| of my machines I got a cheap m.2 Intel ax200 (just checked,
| about $15 on eBay) because it runs faster on FreeBSD than the
| one that shipped with my laptop.
| stackghost wrote:
| >I'm going to guess with this rant that you weren't using
| Linux in the olden days, because that's what it was like.
|
| I've been using Linux and BSD in one form or another since
| 2003, and I definitely used wpa_supplicant on the command
| line to connect my Thinkpad to WiFi. And you're right, it
| did suck. It was not a 9/10 experience by a long shot.
| dizhn wrote:
| Regarding your wifi example. I did have to replace it
| with an intel one on my Lenovo because wifi would not
| work with something connected to Bluetooth (might have
| been USB . I don't recall). This is on Windows by the
| way. I just replaced it instead of fighting it. Same
| reason people prefer AMD on linux but this is changing
| with better Nvidia support.
| asveikau wrote:
| Do you remember ndiswrapper?
|
| FreeBSD actually has a similar thing, you can run Linux
| wifi drivers inside a VM and pass through the adapter.
| There's a port called wifibox that does this.
|
| You can even forward the Unix domain socket for wpa-
| supplicant from the guest to host, so all the normal
| tools that talk to wifi cards via that socket work
| transparently.
| olivierestsage wrote:
| I think what you're seeing is partly a consequence of how
| capable Linux has become. Linux is in a weird phase where it
| can still be enjoyed by hobbyists/enthusiasts/eccentric
| types, which were arguably its original audience, but now you
| can also Zoom and do work and install Steam on it, which
| gives it less appeal from the niche/hobby angle. The software
| ecosystem in Linux is also increasingly homogenizing, which
| helps with the "practicality" aspect, but also diminishes the
| niche appeal. BSDs are in a position to snap up that audience
| that appreciates engineering elegance/design and uses the
| computer as an end unto itself (not just as a means to an
| end). This audience isn't necessarily bothered by wonky
| laptop WiFi, and may even enjoy tinkering with it as a hobby
| project. Just my take.
| skydhash wrote:
| If you don't care about administrating your computer and just
| want to use some software on some hardware, the BSDs are not
| that great. But if you do, the experience is better on the
| BSD land because cohesiveness reduces cognitive debt.
|
| Also I wouldn't make hardware support an OS quality metric.
| Linux get by with NDA and with direct contributions from the
| vendors. Which is something the BSDs don't want/don't benefit
| from.
| stackghost wrote:
| >If you don't care about administrating your computer and
| just want to use some software on some hardware, the BSDs
| are not that great.
|
| Yes this is my opinion also. BSD seems more suited to
| people for whom fiddling with the OS itself is the point,
| rather than the OS being a tool to get other things done.
|
| I fall firmly into the latter camp. I'd rather chew glass
| than manually set flags in rc.conf
| skydhash wrote:
| I like the word tune rather than fiddle. The BSD are very
| stable. You adjust some configuration, and then updates
| without having to change your tools or your config with
| every release. The config are not provided out of the box
| but the manuals can be very informative.
|
| A lot of current GNU/Linux complexity have no benefits
| for most users and may be an hindrance when they want to
| slightly alter their use cases. sudo ->
| doas systemd -> rcctl nftable -> pf
| iproute2|netplan -> ifconfig|route
| alsa|pulseaudio|pipewire -> sndiod
| cgroups|podman|lxc -> jails(freebsd)*
|
| The first column may have valid use cases, but I strongly
| doubt those cases include casual usage. Simple tools that
| work well is better than complex tools that solves
| everything.
|
| * Openbsd does not like containers or being a vm host
| throwaway27448 wrote:
| > I would get a new laptop because a laptop without WiFi is
| useless.
|
| Why would you not just replace the wifi card or use a USB
| one? You're greatly overemphasizing how much this matters.
| justin66 wrote:
| Seriously. I'd rip the wifi hardware out of the laptop with
| a spoon if it somehow got me a laptop that handles sleep
| mode properly. I can't even imagine what that would be like
| with a Unix (aside from a Mac).
| NekkoDroid wrote:
| Fun fact: My old Lenovo Y50 only supports like 3 specific
| WiFi cards else it doesn't even POST. And I think none of
| them work with upstream Linux drivers (I think, have only 2
| different ones and neither worked ages ago and I changed
| laptops a while ago and haven't retested). Actually I think
| one didn't have bluetooth work (the non-standard one) and
| the other needed the broadcom-wl package.
| estebank wrote:
| Paradoxically, given their otherwise positive standing,
| Lenovo has keept allowlists on their BIOS for specific
| devices on specific ports. For example, I have a T460
| that has an m2 slot that only works with two specific
| WWAN modules.
| stackghost wrote:
| I prefer not to live that dongle life.
|
| WiFi on a laptop is table stakes. I'd rather use an
| operating system that works without dongulation.
| sidkshatriya wrote:
| > I would get a new laptop because a laptop without WiFi is
| useless.
|
| You can run Linux in a VM and PCI passthrough your WiFi
| Adapter. Linux drivers will be able to connect to your wifi
| card and you can then supply internet to FreeBSD.
|
| Doing this manually is complicated but the whole process has
| been automated on FreeBSD by "Wifibox"
|
| https://freebsdfoundation.org/our-work/journal/browser-
| based...
|
| I tried it myself and it worked pretty well for a wifi card
| not supported by FreeBSD.
|
| So, no need to get a new laptop :-)
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| I would argue that much of the mentioned zealotry is a sort
| of kneejerk response to cult-like behavior from some Linux
| adherents. It's mostly defensive; these people want continued
| variety in the FOSS desktop space and feel that's threatened
| by Linux.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| I am not negative about it at all. I love it.
|
| It's not as polished as linux obviously, especially for desktop
| usage but the maintainers are very much on the ball (and they
| do a lot of work to get things to compile and work, there's a
| lot of linuxisms they have to work around).
| Gud wrote:
| Why is that "obviously "? I find Linux to be a broken mess.
|
| FWIW I use them both, FreeBSD and Arch , but let's not
| pretend the layers of crap tacked onto the Linux kernel is
| some pinnacle of computing.
| realusername wrote:
| While I like the simplicity from FreeBSD, this simplicity
| also comes specifically because there's less contributions.
|
| I doubt anything can get the scale of Linux and not have
| some mess.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| What is sad is that even though Linux now has hardware support
| that is miles ahead of Windows, we've exchanged one problem
| with another, because nowadays most of the hardware I see is
| only supported on Linux and nothing else.
|
| Even on PCs, latest generation AMD graphics cards (already >1yr
| old) are not supported in _anything_ other than Linux (and
| Windows). This is just sad.
| craftkiller wrote:
| FreeBSD uses a compatibility layer to run the Linux graphics
| drivers, though it lags behind Linux. So if FreeBSD currently
| does not support the graphics cards, it will soon. It looks
| like they are currently porting over 6.11:
| https://github.com/FreeBSDFoundation/proj-laptop/issues/41
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| It is the _only_ OSS operating system that supports AMD
| cards from this decade, and it does so by having to emulate
| the Linux kernel API, and yet _still_ it lags years behind
| Linux itself. I've chosen this example for a reason -- this
| is exactly what I'm sad about.
| 0x457 wrote:
| That and WiFi being stuck at 802.11g is what made me
| switch. It was a very sad day for me when I uninstalled
| FreeBSD from all of non-server machines.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| Interesting. I use FreeBSD on my desktop too but it's really a
| desktop so I don't have to bother with WiFi or bluetooth. I
| generally dislike laptops for ergonomic reasons, and I never
| bring my computers anywhere anyway so I just buy NUCs. Not having
| to buy for a display, keyboard, trackpad, battery helps keep the
| price down.
|
| I like it for several reasons. It's a holistic system which means
| it's much easier to understand, not a collection of random parts
| thrown together. There is only really one (big) distro so
| documentation is easy to come by and consistent. I love the way
| the updates of the system are uncoupled from the userland
| software so you can have rolling packages but a stable OS.
|
| Also the ports collection is great (being able to manually
| compile every package with different flags where needed). And
| jails. And ZFS first-class citizen. Also I like the attitude.
| Less involvement from big tech, less strive to change for
| change's sake. It feels a lot more stable, every new version
| there's only a few things changed. It's not that with every major
| update I have to learn everything anew again because someone
| wanted to include their new init system (like systemd),
| configuration tools (like ifconfig -> ip), packaging system (like
| snap) etc. Things that work fine are just left alone.
|
| It has some really good ideas also, like boot environments. But
| it's not linux. It's not meant to be.
|
| But yeah if you want everything all figured out for you, don't
| use FreeBSD. Just take a commercial linux like ubuntu. You'll
| need to tinker a bit, which I like because it helps me understand
| my system. FreeBSD is a bit like Linux was in the early 2000s, it
| mostly works but you often have to dive into a shell for some
| magic. The good thing is having ZFS snapshots as a safety net
| though. Never really get caught out that way.
| vehemenz wrote:
| > FreeBSD is a bit like Linux was in the early 2000s, it mostly
| works but you often have to dive into a shell for some magic.
|
| Which, ironically, is what Linux users have been saying for
| ages with respect to Windows, but the market share speaks for
| itself.
| sroerick wrote:
| There's an axiom here which is that the better your overall user
| experience is, the less hardware support you are going to have.
|
| The more accessible software becomes the more infra is required
| to support it, and the more complex and convoluted the software
| will be
| Jotalea wrote:
| I'd say Juana Manso laptops are usable with FreeBSD. sure, you
| lose brightness control, you can't see how much battery remains,
| (I didn't try wifi but the 9650AC chip seems to be supported),
| but it is usable. audio works, USB works, video works when you
| load the Intel drivers.
| sunshine-o wrote:
| I personally feel like the race to support a vast array of
| hardware is very costly for such a small team and might be a
| waste of their precious resources.
|
| Of course I love FreeBSD and want it to be supported on my
| desktop or laptop but at what cost?
|
| Here is the question I have always wanted to ask: Why not make
| the ultimate compromise and say: you will be able to run FreeBSD
| on almost all laptops but it is gonna be through let say an
| Alpine Linux hypervisor and we are gonna ship it with all the
| glue you need to have a great experience.
|
| About every CPU has great visualization capabilities nowadays and
| the perf are amazing.
|
| Now some might start screaming at the idea but you already run
| your favorite operating system through a stack of software you do
| not trust or control: UEFI, CPU microcode, etc.
|
| I believe we need OS diversity and if so much of the energy of
| project is spent on working on an infinite hardware support, how
| much is left for the real innovation?
| kombine wrote:
| I agree. Linux has a wealth of hardware drivers and the time
| would be better spent on a translation layer or do it via
| running a VM or even using LLMs to port the drivers over to
| FreeBSD en masse. That way BSD team can focus on their unique
| strengths.
| atmosx wrote:
| My guess is that *BSDs will see a huge boosts in HW support
| in the following years, primarily due to LLMs.
| supliminal wrote:
| Yeah you run into this head on trying to use BSD. It's too much
| glue and compat work. By the end of it you no longer have a
| coherent system, you're back to Linux.
|
| I use FBSD on an old-ish Lenovo W540 without too many hiccups.
| No, it's not for everyone and never was. I wouldn't suggest to
| anyone to run a BSD as a daily driver, or at all, unless they
| have a good reason to. Once you cross that line you need to know
| what and why.
| Xmd5a wrote:
| > Once you cross that line you need to know what and why.
|
| This is counterbalanced by the fact there is often one
| straightforward solution to every problem you run into, and
| those have been abundantly discussed online. Written as someone
| who just gave it a try.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-04-09 17:00 UTC)