7 ms·

The FreeBSD Foundation's Laptop Support and Usability Project

193 points by mikece 10mo ago

mikece 10mo ago
I'm curious why Apple doesn't support this effort: they have done a lot of the work and it won't exactly harm their market share.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 10mo ago
  I still remember when MacOS being based on BSD had the community excited about the future
  - bluGill 10mo ago
    MacOS was never based on BSD. Apple developed the USB drivers for BSP so they could copy it into their OS, but that very different from based on BSD. (It is likely some other parts are copied as well)
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
    - reactordev 10mo ago
      MacOS was absolutely derived from BSD through NeXTSTEP.
      - bluGill 10mo ago
        Large parts have been rewritten: they very different and don't show any BSD heritage.
        reactordev 10mo ago
        That may be true but a large core of it is still BSD. In fact, it’s so BSD that one could create a BSD distro based off FreeBSD and achieve binary compatibility on x86. Which is exactly what RavynOS [0] has done. There’s a lot of BSD under the hood of macOS still today in Darwin. A mix of FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. [0] https://github.com/ravynsoft/ravynos https://github.com/ravynsoft/ravynos
      - AdieuToLogic 10mo ago
        > MacOS was absolutely derived from BSD through NeXTSTEP. The OS-X (now branded as "macOS") kernel was not, and is not, a derivative of the FreeBSD kernel, or any other BSD, even though macOS/OS-X has a FreeBSD kernel component due to its Mach heritage. The userland tools are however BSD. OS-X's kernel is XNU and from the XNU GitHub repo[0]: XNU kernel is part of the Darwin operating system for use in macOS and iOS operating systems. XNU is an acronym for X is Not Unix. XNU is a hybrid kernel combining the Mach kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University with components from FreeBSD and a C++ API for writing drivers called IOKit. XNU runs on x86_64 and ARM64 for both single processor and multi-processor configurations. I recommend the book "Mac OS X Internals"[1] for a detailed analysis of same. EDIT: In theory, XNU could simultaneously run the existing FreeBSD subsystem alongside Linux and/or MS-Windows ones. In practice, this would be a herculean effort fraught with difficulty. See QNX[2] for another example of a micro-kernel OS architecture. 0 - https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu 1 - https://books.apple.com/us/book/mac-os-x-internals/id434358349 https://books.apple.com/us/book/mac-os-x-internals/id4343583... 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QNX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QNX
        p_ing 10mo ago
        Apple outlines the architecture here - https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/KernelProgramming/Architecture/Architecture.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Da...
        reactordev 10mo ago
        >Darwin is based on proven technology from many sources. A large portion of this technology is derived from FreeBSD, a version of 4.4BSD that offers advanced networking, performance, security, and compatibility features. Other parts of the system software, such as Mach, are based on technology previously used in Apple’s MkLinux project, in OS X Server, and in technology acquired from NeXT. Exactly.
        AdieuToLogic 10mo ago
      - lukeh 10mo ago
        The first version of MacOS X Server was based on an unreleased version of NEXTSTEP which in turn used 4.4BSD and Mach 2.5. Around BBB 1997-1998 a lot of userland was synced with bits from not just FreeBSD but the other BSD distributions, if my memory serves me correctly. MacOS X moved to Mach 3. That’s a very very long time ago though, and Apple obviously did a _lot_ of their own CoreOS engineering, things like launchd and XPC don’t have FreeBSD equivalents. But hey, Darwin is open source so if someone wants to do go on a provenance archeological dig, it could be done!
  - ndiddy 10mo ago
    Interesting article on the failure of Darwin as an open source project: http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/writing/osfail.html http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/writing/osfail.html
- E39M5S62 10mo ago
  Apple is struggling to make MacOS functional, why would they contribute engineering time to another OS?
- dzogchen 10mo ago
  I'm curious why you think Apple would support any effort that does not benefit their bottom line?
  - justin66 10mo ago
    There's a case for it when it comes to FreeBSD specifically, since macOS uses some code from FreeBSD.
    - reactordev 10mo ago
      NeXTSTEP did but that was in the 90s. When Apple bought NeXTSTEP (and Jobs returned to the helm of Apple), they used that OS as the basis for macOS X. Due to GPL, they release the sources to the BSD code they use. Everything else is proprietary. Likewise Sony used BSD for PlayStation OS. They publish the sources to the changes to BSD they made, the rest is proprietary.
      - bitwize 10mo ago
        There's no GPL in the BSD sources used by Apple or Sony. They are free to release their operating systems as closed source; Sony does this. Apple releases Darwin sources "out of the goodness of their hearts", meaning, back in the 2000s they wanted to capture mindshare amongst the tech community for whom Linux was the strongest contender. Now that the future has refused to change, the year of the Linux desktop never materialized, and macOS has become the default developer's workstation OS, Apple has been much more sparing with Darwin source drops and may cease them altogether.
        deleted 10mo ago
        [deleted]
        reactordev 10mo ago
        https://www.playstation.com/en-us/oss/ps4/ https://www.playstation.com/en-us/oss/ps4/ https://opensource.apple.com/ https://opensource.apple.com/ GPL where applicable. If it's MIT or just "as is" then no, they won't but they definitely publish the sources to what they are required to. Since FreeBSD is "as is" 4.4BSD licensed, they aren't required to publish the sources of Orbis.
- rjsw 10mo ago
  Apple hasn't done any work that would be useful.
  - Lammy 10mo ago
    Weird to see this downvoted, because it's totally true. Apple imports FreeBSD's userland periodically but not its kernel/drivers, and thus has nothing to do with how well FreeBSD works on PC hardware: https://wiki.freebsd.org/Myths#FreeBSD_is_Just_macOS_Without_the_Good_Bits https://wiki.freebsd.org/Myths#FreeBSD_is_Just_macOS_Without...
    - AdieuToLogic 10mo ago
      > Apple imports FreeBSD's userland periodically but not its kernel/drivers ... OS-X/macOS runs an entirely different kernel called XNU[0][1], which is why userland tools can be imported whereas FreeBSD kernel and device driver code cannot. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU 1 - https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu
  - bluGill 10mo ago
    Any is a bit too strong. Apple has does (and still does) some useful work with clang/llvm, and a few other tools that BSDs use. However this is indirect at best.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- xp84 10mo ago
  I would expect if anyone even considered it, they’d immediately reject the idea, as they clearly believe that Apple retains ownership of the computers they “sell” and should control the software you could run on them.
- wpm 10mo ago
  Users buying Macs to put BSD on them are less likely to buy things in the Mac App Store.
- jandrese 10mo ago
  Apple's attitude towards other OSes running on their hardware is less "supportive" and more "barely tolerates". Also as a general rule Apple doesn't contribute much to open source outside of some high profile projects like Swift and Webkit.
  - LeFantome 10mo ago
    As somebody using a Linux distro compiled with Clang, I consider the work on LLVM to be Apple’s greatest contribution to Open Source. I have seen others say that CUPS is. And there is libdispatch, mdns, etc. Anyway, they contribute more than you think.
- reactordev 10mo ago
  Apple publishes the sources to the GPL BSD code they have to but that’s where the support ends. Apple has no interest in assisting a competing operating system.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- justinclift 10mo ago
  Isn't it Apple's policy to not support OSS projects, unless they're Apple's own OSS ones? ie anything Apple didn't create/release themselves
dzogchen 10mo ago
So, is there a laptop that has good support for FreeBSD support out of the box? My requirements are: suspend/resume, being able to drive a 5K monitor over USB-C, wifi. I found https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops but I don't know how up-to-date it is.
- zeech 10mo ago
  I can't speak to it driving a monitor over USB-C as I don't use one, but I'm currently running 15.0-RELEASE on a refurbished Dell Latitude 7280 that has worked flawlessly out of the box so far. Somebody else did a nice writeup [0] on their experience with FBSD on the same laptop. [0] https://adventurist.me/posts/00352 https://adventurist.me/posts/00352
- nrp 10mo ago
  We’ve been working with Ed and team at FreeBSD on this, and have a document showing what works currently on Framework Laptops: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/freebsd-on-framework https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/freebsd-on-framework
  - jm4 10mo ago
    This is great. I've been checking on it periodically. I'm using the Framework 13 Ryzen AI 300 and the Framework Desktop so not quite there yet. Interested in taking FreeBSD for a spin when the support is there.
  - Lammy 10mo ago
    Small correction: the AX211 card in the Framework 12 is able to connect to networks, not just scan. What you're missing is that a bunch of the Wi-Fi firmware blobs were removed from the base system between FreeBSD 14.2 and 14.3, and since 14.3 came out in June 2025 I assume that's what was tested. An upgrade from 14.2 to 14.3 would also have kept working, just not a fresh install of 14.3 or 15.0. A user needs some other working network connection first. I used my Android phone's USB tethering — all that takes is a quick `dhclient ue0`. Then one can run `fwget` to get the firmware that will make the Wi-Fi work fully: https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fwget%288%29 https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fwget%288%29 Source: very happy Framework 12 owner (currently dual-booting Windows 11 Enterprise and FreeBSD 15.0 + Wayland + KDE) :)
walterbell 10mo ago
FreeBSD status on Apple Silicon, https://wiki.freebsd.org/AppleSilicon https://wiki.freebsd.org/AppleSilicon
- roywashere 10mo ago
  The table lists very limited support for M1 and not even lists newer variants! I guess it was only to be expected, asahi Linux also has challenges and of course FreeBSD has less eyeballs than Linux
  - LeFantome 10mo ago
    Linux is pretty much good to go on M1 or even M2 now. No joy on anything newer than that though.
    - sparky4pro 10mo ago
      Is Asahi Linux alive?
      - opan 10mo ago
        They just posted a progress report this month. Seems very much alive.
styanax 10mo ago
(random anecdote) My first and last experience with FreeBSD laptop was trying to use 3.x (!) on a Dell Inspiron 3500 (PII-350 maybe?), no sound modules were precompiled or included or whatever. Took about 3 days for `make world` to finally finish rebuilding... and then sound still not work. Red Hat 6.x "just worked" in all regards.
- yjftsjthsd-h 10mo ago
  I mean. Judging by 3.x, that was literally 25-27 years ago. Not sure what that has to do with the project that exists today?
  - 0x1ch 10mo ago
    Let me know when you can get a Dell XPS 13 (2024/25) working with FreeBSD out of the box without the need to hunt documentation down for the following. - audio - wifi - biometrics - GPU drivers that work well.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 10mo ago
      Unless you're trying to run your XPS on FreeBSD 3.x, I don't see what that has to do with either comment in this thread. Really really old OSs had problems. Current OSs also have problems, including that no OS supports all hardware, but I don't really see any connection between an anecdote about sound problems literally last century and missing drivers today.
      - 0x1ch 10mo ago
        Everything I mentioned many would consider to be essential parts of their system that should work, and would then fall under "Support and Usability" initiatives. I guess I'm pointing out that his experience 20 something years ago is still relevant today, even if there's a lower barrier to entry now.
    - jandrese 10mo ago
      Do the biometrics work on Linux? Last time I had a laptop with a fingerprint reader the whole thing was controlled by some Broadcom thing that was hostile to anything not made by Microsoft. A fingerprint reader is a highly optional feature so it's not a problem if it is not working.
reactordev 10mo ago
Yessssssss!!! I would love to help out in any way I can. I’m no good at kernels and stuff but I’m a Linux/unix man and I know graphics. I would love to see a FreeBSD Workstation edition akin to like Fedora or Ubuntu where things just work (mostly). Wayland took too long. We’re still stuck on Gtk. KDE Plasma team is making moves. I just want a nice, BSD, desktop experience without all the enshitification of copilot or Apple knowing what’s best for me.
le-mark 10mo ago
> It was 65 quid with about a fiver in postage and there are a ton of them. I’ve bought a few of this vintage (7490’s specifically) and they are plentiful, cheap, and perfectly useable. I put Ubuntu on them, works great.
hoppp 10mo ago
Im about to buy a used thinkpad. Guess what I install on it .. yeah if the wifi driver is working well Im all in
zenlot 10mo ago
I have Lenovo W530 from around 2012 or so. It has Nvidia K1000M card, full of RAM, i7. I kept upgrading it over the years and used Windows. I have decided to get back to FreeBSD, I used it as desktop 2002-2009 or so. Downloaded 15.0, start install, wifi driver works perfectly, out of the box. Promising start, never seen before with FreeBSD. Installed. Next, lets go to setup, graphics and Wayland. And here we started again, same story, hundred magic params to add, nvidia drivers doesn't work properly, install older version, is incompatible with Wayland etc. Need to go back to Xorg, another set of problems. Ok, if I spent another 8 hours and asked for help in forums as it was 20+ years ago, I could have probably made it work. Until the next issue showed up. So I decide to drop it, download CachyOS. Start installer. It detects K1000M, installs old version of Nvidia drivers, KDE, sorts out all compatibility issues, everything just flies, flawlessly. As never before, not even Ubuntu or Fedora. CachyOS guys, thank you, you made an incredible work on getting it all to this state. Absolutely great. Now don't get me wrong, I love FreeBSD, used it as my main driver for years in early 2000s, started my career with it and it has sweet spot in my heart, forever. It's just that laptop support is not there, still terrible, as it was 20 years ago. PS last laptop I used it successfully on, was Sony Vaio VGN-FS550 from 2005!
- officeplant 9mo ago
  You could try something like GhostBSD if you wanted an easier experience, but I've avoided nvidia like the plague since 2010 so not sure how well old nvidia cards are being supported.
neocron 10mo ago
I laid my hopes to rest to see some actual support for somewhat current desktop or even laptop hardware with bsd in my lifetime. Think it's been 15+ years since I first tried and hardware only got more complicated and closed than back then

193 points by mikece 10mo ago

mikece 10mo ago

I'm curious why Apple doesn't support this effort: they have done a lot of the work and it won't exactly harm their market share.

OsrsNeedsf2P 10mo ago
I still remember when MacOS being based on BSD had the community excited about the future
- bluGill 10mo ago
  MacOS was never based on BSD. Apple developed the USB drivers for BSP so they could copy it into their OS, but that very different from based on BSD. (It is likely some other parts are copied as well)
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - reactordev 10mo ago
    MacOS was absolutely derived from BSD through NeXTSTEP.
    - bluGill 10mo ago
      Large parts have been rewritten: they very different and don't show any BSD heritage.
      - reactordev 10mo ago
        That may be true but a large core of it is still BSD. In fact, it’s so BSD that one could create a BSD distro based off FreeBSD and achieve binary compatibility on x86. Which is exactly what RavynOS [0] has done. There’s a lot of BSD under the hood of macOS still today in Darwin. A mix of FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. [0] https://github.com/ravynsoft/ravynos https://github.com/ravynsoft/ravynos
    - AdieuToLogic 10mo ago
      > MacOS was absolutely derived from BSD through NeXTSTEP. The OS-X (now branded as "macOS") kernel was not, and is not, a derivative of the FreeBSD kernel, or any other BSD, even though macOS/OS-X has a FreeBSD kernel component due to its Mach heritage. The userland tools are however BSD. OS-X's kernel is XNU and from the XNU GitHub repo[0]: XNU kernel is part of the Darwin operating system for use in macOS and iOS operating systems. XNU is an acronym for X is Not Unix. XNU is a hybrid kernel combining the Mach kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University with components from FreeBSD and a C++ API for writing drivers called IOKit. XNU runs on x86_64 and ARM64 for both single processor and multi-processor configurations. I recommend the book "Mac OS X Internals"[1] for a detailed analysis of same. EDIT: In theory, XNU could simultaneously run the existing FreeBSD subsystem alongside Linux and/or MS-Windows ones. In practice, this would be a herculean effort fraught with difficulty. See QNX[2] for another example of a micro-kernel OS architecture. 0 - https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu 1 - https://books.apple.com/us/book/mac-os-x-internals/id434358349 https://books.apple.com/us/book/mac-os-x-internals/id4343583... 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QNX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QNX
      - p_ing 10mo ago
        Apple outlines the architecture here - https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/KernelProgramming/Architecture/Architecture.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Da...
        reactordev 10mo ago
        >Darwin is based on proven technology from many sources. A large portion of this technology is derived from FreeBSD, a version of 4.4BSD that offers advanced networking, performance, security, and compatibility features. Other parts of the system software, such as Mach, are based on technology previously used in Apple’s MkLinux project, in OS X Server, and in technology acquired from NeXT. Exactly.
        AdieuToLogic 10mo ago
    - lukeh 10mo ago
      The first version of MacOS X Server was based on an unreleased version of NEXTSTEP which in turn used 4.4BSD and Mach 2.5. Around BBB 1997-1998 a lot of userland was synced with bits from not just FreeBSD but the other BSD distributions, if my memory serves me correctly. MacOS X moved to Mach 3. That’s a very very long time ago though, and Apple obviously did a _lot_ of their own CoreOS engineering, things like launchd and XPC don’t have FreeBSD equivalents. But hey, Darwin is open source so if someone wants to do go on a provenance archeological dig, it could be done!
- ndiddy 10mo ago
  Interesting article on the failure of Darwin as an open source project: http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/writing/osfail.html http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/writing/osfail.html
E39M5S62 10mo ago
Apple is struggling to make MacOS functional, why would they contribute engineering time to another OS?
dzogchen 10mo ago
I'm curious why you think Apple would support any effort that does not benefit their bottom line?
- justin66 10mo ago
  There's a case for it when it comes to FreeBSD specifically, since macOS uses some code from FreeBSD.
  - reactordev 10mo ago
    NeXTSTEP did but that was in the 90s. When Apple bought NeXTSTEP (and Jobs returned to the helm of Apple), they used that OS as the basis for macOS X. Due to GPL, they release the sources to the BSD code they use. Everything else is proprietary. Likewise Sony used BSD for PlayStation OS. They publish the sources to the changes to BSD they made, the rest is proprietary.
    - bitwize 10mo ago
      There's no GPL in the BSD sources used by Apple or Sony. They are free to release their operating systems as closed source; Sony does this. Apple releases Darwin sources "out of the goodness of their hearts", meaning, back in the 2000s they wanted to capture mindshare amongst the tech community for whom Linux was the strongest contender. Now that the future has refused to change, the year of the Linux desktop never materialized, and macOS has become the default developer's workstation OS, Apple has been much more sparing with Darwin source drops and may cease them altogether.
      - deleted 10mo ago
        [deleted]
      - reactordev 10mo ago
        https://www.playstation.com/en-us/oss/ps4/ https://www.playstation.com/en-us/oss/ps4/ https://opensource.apple.com/ https://opensource.apple.com/ GPL where applicable. If it's MIT or just "as is" then no, they won't but they definitely publish the sources to what they are required to. Since FreeBSD is "as is" 4.4BSD licensed, they aren't required to publish the sources of Orbis.
rjsw 10mo ago
Apple hasn't done any work that would be useful.
- Lammy 10mo ago
  Weird to see this downvoted, because it's totally true. Apple imports FreeBSD's userland periodically but not its kernel/drivers, and thus has nothing to do with how well FreeBSD works on PC hardware: https://wiki.freebsd.org/Myths#FreeBSD_is_Just_macOS_Without_the_Good_Bits https://wiki.freebsd.org/Myths#FreeBSD_is_Just_macOS_Without...
  - AdieuToLogic 10mo ago
    > Apple imports FreeBSD's userland periodically but not its kernel/drivers ... OS-X/macOS runs an entirely different kernel called XNU[0][1], which is why userland tools can be imported whereas FreeBSD kernel and device driver code cannot. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU 1 - https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu
- bluGill 10mo ago
  Any is a bit too strong. Apple has does (and still does) some useful work with clang/llvm, and a few other tools that BSDs use. However this is indirect at best.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
xp84 10mo ago
I would expect if anyone even considered it, they’d immediately reject the idea, as they clearly believe that Apple retains ownership of the computers they “sell” and should control the software you could run on them.
wpm 10mo ago
Users buying Macs to put BSD on them are less likely to buy things in the Mac App Store.
jandrese 10mo ago
Apple's attitude towards other OSes running on their hardware is less "supportive" and more "barely tolerates". Also as a general rule Apple doesn't contribute much to open source outside of some high profile projects like Swift and Webkit.
- LeFantome 10mo ago
  As somebody using a Linux distro compiled with Clang, I consider the work on LLVM to be Apple’s greatest contribution to Open Source. I have seen others say that CUPS is. And there is libdispatch, mdns, etc. Anyway, they contribute more than you think.
reactordev 10mo ago
Apple publishes the sources to the GPL BSD code they have to but that’s where the support ends. Apple has no interest in assisting a competing operating system.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
justinclift 10mo ago
Isn't it Apple's policy to not support OSS projects, unless they're Apple's own OSS ones? ie anything Apple didn't create/release themselves

dzogchen 10mo ago

So, is there a laptop that has good support for FreeBSD support out of the box? My requirements are: suspend/resume, being able to drive a 5K monitor over USB-C, wifi. I found https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops but I don't know how up-to-date it is.

zeech 10mo ago
I can't speak to it driving a monitor over USB-C as I don't use one, but I'm currently running 15.0-RELEASE on a refurbished Dell Latitude 7280 that has worked flawlessly out of the box so far. Somebody else did a nice writeup [0] on their experience with FBSD on the same laptop. [0] https://adventurist.me/posts/00352 https://adventurist.me/posts/00352
nrp 10mo ago
We’ve been working with Ed and team at FreeBSD on this, and have a document showing what works currently on Framework Laptops: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/freebsd-on-framework https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/freebsd-on-framework
- jm4 10mo ago
  This is great. I've been checking on it periodically. I'm using the Framework 13 Ryzen AI 300 and the Framework Desktop so not quite there yet. Interested in taking FreeBSD for a spin when the support is there.
- Lammy 10mo ago
  Small correction: the AX211 card in the Framework 12 is able to connect to networks, not just scan. What you're missing is that a bunch of the Wi-Fi firmware blobs were removed from the base system between FreeBSD 14.2 and 14.3, and since 14.3 came out in June 2025 I assume that's what was tested. An upgrade from 14.2 to 14.3 would also have kept working, just not a fresh install of 14.3 or 15.0. A user needs some other working network connection first. I used my Android phone's USB tethering — all that takes is a quick `dhclient ue0`. Then one can run `fwget` to get the firmware that will make the Wi-Fi work fully: https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fwget%288%29 https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fwget%288%29 Source: very happy Framework 12 owner (currently dual-booting Windows 11 Enterprise and FreeBSD 15.0 + Wayland + KDE) :)

walterbell 10mo ago

FreeBSD status on Apple Silicon, https://wiki.freebsd.org/AppleSilicon https://wiki.freebsd.org/AppleSilicon

roywashere 10mo ago
The table lists very limited support for M1 and not even lists newer variants! I guess it was only to be expected, asahi Linux also has challenges and of course FreeBSD has less eyeballs than Linux
- LeFantome 10mo ago
  Linux is pretty much good to go on M1 or even M2 now. No joy on anything newer than that though.
  - sparky4pro 10mo ago
    Is Asahi Linux alive?
    - opan 10mo ago
      They just posted a progress report this month. Seems very much alive.

styanax 10mo ago

(random anecdote) My first and last experience with FreeBSD laptop was trying to use 3.x (!) on a Dell Inspiron 3500 (PII-350 maybe?), no sound modules were precompiled or included or whatever. Took about 3 days for `make world` to finally finish rebuilding... and then sound still not work. Red Hat 6.x "just worked" in all regards.

yjftsjthsd-h 10mo ago
I mean. Judging by 3.x, that was literally 25-27 years ago. Not sure what that has to do with the project that exists today?
- 0x1ch 10mo ago
  Let me know when you can get a Dell XPS 13 (2024/25) working with FreeBSD out of the box without the need to hunt documentation down for the following. - audio - wifi - biometrics - GPU drivers that work well.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 10mo ago
    Unless you're trying to run your XPS on FreeBSD 3.x, I don't see what that has to do with either comment in this thread. Really really old OSs had problems. Current OSs also have problems, including that no OS supports all hardware, but I don't really see any connection between an anecdote about sound problems literally last century and missing drivers today.
    - 0x1ch 10mo ago
      Everything I mentioned many would consider to be essential parts of their system that should work, and would then fall under "Support and Usability" initiatives. I guess I'm pointing out that his experience 20 something years ago is still relevant today, even if there's a lower barrier to entry now.
  - jandrese 10mo ago
    Do the biometrics work on Linux? Last time I had a laptop with a fingerprint reader the whole thing was controlled by some Broadcom thing that was hostile to anything not made by Microsoft. A fingerprint reader is a highly optional feature so it's not a problem if it is not working.

reactordev 10mo ago

Yessssssss!!! I would love to help out in any way I can. I’m no good at kernels and stuff but I’m a Linux/unix man and I know graphics. I would love to see a FreeBSD Workstation edition akin to like Fedora or Ubuntu where things just work (mostly). Wayland took too long. We’re still stuck on Gtk. KDE Plasma team is making moves. I just want a nice, BSD, desktop experience without all the enshitification of copilot or Apple knowing what’s best for me.

le-mark 10mo ago

> It was 65 quid with about a fiver in postage and there are a ton of them. I’ve bought a few of this vintage (7490’s specifically) and they are plentiful, cheap, and perfectly useable. I put Ubuntu on them, works great.

hoppp 10mo ago

Im about to buy a used thinkpad. Guess what I install on it .. yeah if the wifi driver is working well Im all in

zenlot 10mo ago

I have Lenovo W530 from around 2012 or so. It has Nvidia K1000M card, full of RAM, i7. I kept upgrading it over the years and used Windows. I have decided to get back to FreeBSD, I used it as desktop 2002-2009 or so. Downloaded 15.0, start install, wifi driver works perfectly, out of the box. Promising start, never seen before with FreeBSD. Installed. Next, lets go to setup, graphics and Wayland. And here we started again, same story, hundred magic params to add, nvidia drivers doesn't work properly, install older version, is incompatible with Wayland etc. Need to go back to Xorg, another set of problems. Ok, if I spent another 8 hours and asked for help in forums as it was 20+ years ago, I could have probably made it work. Until the next issue showed up. So I decide to drop it, download CachyOS. Start installer. It detects K1000M, installs old version of Nvidia drivers, KDE, sorts out all compatibility issues, everything just flies, flawlessly. As never before, not even Ubuntu or Fedora. CachyOS guys, thank you, you made an incredible work on getting it all to this state. Absolutely great. Now don't get me wrong, I love FreeBSD, used it as my main driver for years in early 2000s, started my career with it and it has sweet spot in my heart, forever. It's just that laptop support is not there, still terrible, as it was 20 years ago. PS last laptop I used it successfully on, was Sony Vaio VGN-FS550 from 2005!

officeplant 9mo ago
You could try something like GhostBSD if you wanted an easier experience, but I've avoided nvidia like the plague since 2010 so not sure how well old nvidia cards are being supported.

neocron 10mo ago

I laid my hopes to rest to see some actual support for somewhat current desktop or even laptop hardware with bsd in my lifetime. Think it's been 15+ years since I first tried and hardware only got more complicated and closed than back then