So, is there a laptop that has good support for FreeBSD support out of the box?<p>My requirements are: suspend/resume, being able to drive a 5K monitor over USB-C, wifi.<p>I found <a href="https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops</a> but I don't know how up-to-date it is.
We’ve been working with Ed and team at FreeBSD on this, and have a document showing what works currently on Framework Laptops: <a href="https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/freebsd-on-framework" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/freebsd-on-framework</a>
Small correction: the AX211 card in the Framework 12 <i>is</i> 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.<p>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: <a href="https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fwget%288%29" rel="nofollow">https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fwget%288%29</a><p>Source: very happy Framework 12 owner (currently dual-booting Windows 11 Enterprise and FreeBSD 15.0 + Wayland + KDE) :)
I have tried this very same combination - F12 + FreeBSD + KDE on Wayland and WiFi works to me out of the box (even during installation!), but a lot of things doesn’t work for me - suspend and resume doesn’t work at all (even when I blacklist WiFi kernel module - suspend starts working, but resume doesn’t). A lot of apps on KDE also crash for me - every time I try to run Konqueror or Falkon they crash immediately).
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.
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.<p>Somebody else did a nice writeup [0] on their experience with FBSD on the same laptop.<p>[0] <a href="https://adventurist.me/posts/00352" rel="nofollow">https://adventurist.me/posts/00352</a>
You’re describing basically any modern ARM Mac ;-) except for the running FreeBSD bit. But hey MacOS is BSD ish?
I mean some of that is even hard to get with Linux tbh especially sleep.
FreeBSD status on Apple Silicon, <a href="https://wiki.freebsd.org/AppleSilicon" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.freebsd.org/AppleSilicon</a>
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.
I'm curious why you think Apple would support any effort that does not benefit their bottom line?
There's a case for it when it comes to FreeBSD specifically, since macOS uses some code from FreeBSD.
There's zero business case because they want to sell you a laptop and subscription to iCloud.<p>Improving FreeBSD will make it easier to run BSD on non-apple hardware which will eat into their bottom line.<p>The number of people who will buy a Mac to run BSD is a rounding error, and those people won't buy iCloud subscriptions anyway.
> Improving FreeBSD will make it easier to run BSD on non-apple hardware which will eat into their bottom line.<p>The number of people who want to run FreeBSD on their laptops probably numbers in the hundreds. Not exactly a threat to Apple's bottom line.<p>On the other hand, some of those people are FreeBSD developers who create and maintain code that Apple would like to have the option of using. That relationship is worth <i>something</i> to Apple.
>On the other hand, some of those people are FreeBSD developers who create and maintain code that Apple would like to have the option of using. That relationship is worth something to Apple.<p>It wasn't that long ago that we used to have to endure HN commenters spamming the same copypasta every time BSD was mentioned: "did you know BSD runs your playstation and netflix and <...>. You should donate money!"<p>Evidently it's not worth more than the cost of assigning engineers to this, otherwise Apple would already be doing it.
I don’t really follow any of this cynical humor but<p>> otherwise Apple would already be doing it.<p>The gap between what Apple ought to be doing, even if for no other reason than its own good, and what Apple actually does is sometimes pretty wide.
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.<p>Due to GPL, they release the sources to the BSD code they use. Everything else is proprietary.<p>Likewise Sony used BSD for PlayStation OS. They publish the sources to the changes to BSD they made, the rest is proprietary.
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.
<a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/oss/ps4/" rel="nofollow">https://www.playstation.com/en-us/oss/ps4/</a><p><a href="https://opensource.apple.com/" rel="nofollow">https://opensource.apple.com/</a><p>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.
Why would BSD use GPL?<p>BSD has a BSD license. It doesn't require source code releases.
I'm curious why you think Apple making their hardware work with more operating systems does not benefit their bottom line.<p>Aside from that the answer is "Corporate Goodwill." That actually is a bottom line number that gets reported.
> I'm curious why you think Apple making their hardware work with more operating systems does not benefit their bottom line.<p>Because they sell and advertise MacOS. Not "compatible with a wide range of OSes" (like say raspberry pis).<p>People buying a laptop due to goodwill and openness <i>does</i> happen (I bought my framework 13 due to that), but that's not a game Apple has played since Woz left - and for the worse, I think.
Users buying Macs to put BSD on them are less likely to buy things in the Mac App Store.
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.
As somebody using a Linux distro compiled with Clang, I consider the work on LLVM to be Apple’s greatest contribution to Open Source.<p>I have seen others say that CUPS is.<p>And there is libdispatch, mdns, etc.<p>Anyway, they contribute more than you think.
I still remember when MacOS being based on BSD had the community excited about the future
Interesting article on the failure of Darwin as an open source project: <a href="http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/writing/osfail.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/writing/osfail.html</a>
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)
Apple publishes the sources to the GPL BSD code they have to but that’s where the support ends.<p>Apple has no interest in assisting a competing operating system.
Apple is struggling to make MacOS functional, why would they contribute engineering time to another OS?
Isn't it Apple's policy to not support OSS projects, unless they're Apple's own OSS ones?<p>ie anything Apple didn't create/release themselves
Apple hasn't done any work that would be useful.
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.
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: <a href="https://wiki.freebsd.org/Myths#FreeBSD_is_Just_macOS_Without_the_Good_Bits" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.freebsd.org/Myths#FreeBSD_is_Just_macOS_Without...</a>
> Apple imports FreeBSD's userland periodically but not its kernel/drivers ...<p>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.<p>0 - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU</a><p>1 - <a href="https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu</a>
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.
Im about to buy a used thinkpad. Guess what I install on it .. yeah if the wifi driver is working well Im all in
I laid my hopes to rest to see some actual support for somewhat current desktop or even laptop hardware with bsd in my lifetime.<p>Think it's been 15+ years since I first tried and hardware only got more complicated and closed than back then
> It was 65 quid with about a fiver in postage and there are a ton of them.<p>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.
(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.
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.<p>I would <i>love</i> to see a FreeBSD Workstation edition akin to like Fedora or Ubuntu where things just work (mostly).<p>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.
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.<p>I have decided to get back to FreeBSD, I used it as desktop 2002-2009 or so.<p>Downloaded 15.0, start install, wifi driver works perfectly, out of the box. Promising start, never seen before with FreeBSD.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>CachyOS guys, thank you, you made an incredible work on getting it all to this state. Absolutely great.<p>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!