I think the real reason is that in the mid to late 90s, there were several hardware vendors that focused on Linux. One of them at least went public (VA Linux).

I think the real reason is that in the mid to late 90s, there were several hardware vendors that focused on Linux. One of them at least went public (VA Linux). In fear of losing hardware sales, Dell/HP/Sun (their X86 hardware unit)/ IBM all made sure that their servers could run Linux also. This resulted in a lot of hardware support being added very quickly. FreeBSD never had that "tornado" of uptake from major hardware vendors, and thus, support always lagged, if it was there at all.