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.
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.
> now has hardware support that is miles ahead of Windows
[X] doubt.
Windows is cleaning up a lot of legacy drivers. A bunch of printers (+ scanners) that predate updates to the printer driver framework in recent versions of windows just don't have functioning drivers anymore, despite being perfectly functional.
All these devices work out of the box on linux, more or less.
Most devices that you can buy for under $400 now run on ARM chips (frequently Mediatek). We're talking tablets (with keyboards), convertibles, even outright laptops (i.e. "netbooks"). These things qualify as computers. They are replacing traditional laptops, just as those replaced desktops.
And they do not run Linux out of the box.
If we're looking at sub-$400 computers, especially on ARM, it seems like we have to include the large segment of ChromeOS devices that only run Linux out of the box (or at all, generally).
Referring to Intel Chromebooks (i.e. laptops), that segment is now dwindling in size much as its predecessor (Intel Windows netbooks) did a few years ago. Most low-end ChromeOS devices now run on ARM. And Android is nipping at their heels.
Sure. And all of those devices run Linux. Some of them even run other Linux OSs decently; one of my daily drivers is an ARM Chromebook running postmarketos.
It is not trivial to get FOSS Linux onto a write-protected Intel Chromebook, compared to a Windows netbook of yore. It is harder still to get it onto an ARM Chromebook or Android tablet. PostmarketOS is a bit simpler (or at least better documented) but it is not a full Linux distro.
Installing a fully-fledged FOSS OS on low-end general-purpose computing hardware is getting harder. Certainly for the non-techies who have to be part of FOSS if it is to survive.
Most devices in that class I see run some vendor flavor of Android or ChromeOS and not Windows, so definitionally speaking they do run Linux out of the box.
Yes but it's a bit academic. The problem is that getting a FOSS distro of Linux onto low-end general-purpose computing hardware is harder now than it was a decade ago. I speak from bitter recent experience.
Oh, I know perfectly well what you mean. The move to the SoC paradigm has serious implications for the future of computing freedom. I can't imagine how we might be able to fight this crap, realistically.
There is only one area where windows excels: recent PC-based hardware. For everything else, primarily including anything that is not PC, and anything that is from more than a decade and a half or so ago, Linux is miles ahead, and there's no discussion possible.
Whether this is any helpful to us is another story.
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
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.
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.
That certainly _used_ to be the case, but it looks like 802.11ac is supported in iwlwifi since FreeBSD 14.3: https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=iwlwifi&sektion=4&...
And it looks like they're adding 802.11ac support to some realtek drivers too: https://www.freebsd.org/status/report-2025-10-2025-12/#_linu...
Not to sound like goal post mover, but once you tried 802.11be @ 6GHz, you never go back (assuming what your AP connected to can handle it).
That's my problem with FreeBSD on non-servers - eventually it's supported, usually via Linux shim, but it's too late. By the time FreeBSD started to support (on CURRENT) GPU that forced me to switch, I already upgraded twice.
Glad it's getting better.
eh I've got 802.11be @ 6ghz at home (u7 pro AP and QCNCM865 client) and it is truly impressive, but I only notice the difference once every 1-2 years when I'm transferring a full-disk image over the network for backup. We've long passed the point where the speed improvements matter for daily usage (browsing the web, streaming video, remote desktop, installing updates). For those use cases, you wouldn't notice a slowdown on 802.11ac and I'd argue even 802.11n would be fine.
The one exception I can think of would be video content creators since they end up with large amounts of raw video that would benefit from transferring at much-faster-than-streaming speeds.
And I guess steam downloads if you don't plan ahead at all, but if I'm planning to play a game later, I'll tell steam to install it hours or days in advance.
I often have to transfer large files in LAN. 802.11ac and 802.11n definitely enough for most of the time. I often have to transfer large files between machines in LAN, with 802.11ac makes you remember that it's wireless, while 802.11be makes you forget.
I have the same setup for a framework main board next to the AP, and it's reliably faster than using their usb-c ethernet extension card.
I wouldn’t mind faster wifi speed, but reverse engineering stuff has always been slow (i.e Asahi Linux, and they only have a few device to investigate)
Ethernet works fine for me at home, only use WiFi when travelling.
Why do you think so?
It's sad because it removes choice from users over what OS to run. People that only use windows are going and throwing their old computers away.
I think of it more in the reverse, the choice being removed is the hardware you can use. It has been the case from the dawn of computing that you start from a usecase (which correlates to software, which maps to an operating system) and then look at your options for hardware. The more specific your usecase, the more specific your software, which correlates to a specific choice of hardware. There is no, and can be no, "have it all". It's a fundamental principle of mathematics, the postulates you choose radically change the set of proofs you have access to, and the set of proofs you choose entail the axioms and structures you can take.
Now it can be better or worse, and right now it's never been better. There was a time when your language, your shell and your operating system were specific to the exact model of computer (not just a patched kernel, everything was fully bespoke) and you have a very limited set of peripherals. That we suffer from more esoteric operating systems lagging behind the bleeding edge of extremely complicated peripherals is a very good place to be in. That there's always room for improvement shouldn't be cause for sadness.
> Now it can be better or worse, and right now it's never been better. There was a time when your language, your shell and your operating system were specific to the exact model of comput
No, it is not. There was a small period of time between the 90s and the 2010s where you could grab almost every 386 OS and have your hardware mostly decently run for it, and if not, drivers would be easily written from manufacturer specifications. That time was definitely better then than what we have today, or what we had before then. I am writing this as someone who was written serial port controller drivers for the BeOS.
> That we suffer from more esoteric operating systems lagging behind the bleeding edge of extremely complicated peripherals is a very good place to be in.
This is the wrong logic, because operating systems become esoteric since they can't support the hardware, and hardware becomes complicated and under-specified because there's basically only one operating system to take care of. You may _think_ you have no reason to be sad if you're a user of Windows or Linux, but you have plenty anyway.
> There was a small period of time between the 90s and the 2010s where you could grab almost every 386 OS and have your hardware mostly decently run for it
And prior to that, you could grab every OS running on IBM clones and not have to worry about graphics drivers at all, because graphics acceleration wasn't a thing. The era you refer to had already introduced software contingency on hardware. This disparity was further compounded in the mid-2010s as GPUs exploded in complexity and screamed into tens of millions of lines of code, eclipsing kernels themselves. This is not distinguishable from the introduction of graphics drivers in any generalized manner. They were driven by the same process.
An important thing I want to point out as well; you're doing a lot of heavy lifting by limiting the pool to x86 computers, which is already giving up and admitting to a very strong restriction of hardware choice. Don't take that as pedantry, it's a very well hidden assumption that you've accidentally overlooked, or in the case that you think it's irrelevant, I'm letting you know that I don't consider it irrelevant in the slightest. When I think of computers, I'm not just thinking of x86 PCs. In the 90s I'm thinking of SGI workstations, Acorns, Amiga, Macs. I'm thinking of mainframes and supercomputers and everything else.
> This is the wrong logic, because operating systems become esoteric since they can't support the hardware
On the contrary, I assure you that this logic rests on faulty premises. As a general principle it's clearly false since most operating systems (which are long forgotten) predate it by decades, and in the specific context of Linux winning over FreeBSD, it's still not applicable as that happened smack dab in this era you describe.
> You may _think_ you have no reason to be sad if you're a user of Windows or Linux, but you have plenty anyway.
I'm a user of Linux, FreeBSD and 9Front. I just don't (and never have) bought hardware at random. You can reason your way into sadness any which way, but rationalization isn't always meaningfully justified. I just don't find it sad that my second desktop can't have an RX 9000 whatever in it. Where's the cut off line for that? Why not be sad that I can't jam a Fujitsu ARM processor into a PCIE slot as another type of satellite processor? The incompatibility is of the same effect, but I don't see you lamenting or even considering the latter, as though mounting a processor to a PCB is somehow fundamentally less possible than writing a modern graphics driver.
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).
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.
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.
> this simplicity also comes specifically because there's less contributions.
Not entirely. A rather large amount of Linux's mess stems from the fact that it was a hobbyist project in its foundational years. It was never clean or well designed, at any point in its life. Go look at Linux 1.2.0 vs FreeBSD 2.0
Even when Linux began to get traction, it had already developed an ingrained culture that didn't particularly care about "nice" code or architectural solutions. The BSDs inherited their culture where such things were prioritized. You're right that things get messier as they get larger, but the gap between the two is much, much larger than can possibly be accounted for. Things like Linux not respecting NICE values have very little to do with surface-level problems like stylistic inconsistencies in the source code.
>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.
> 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.
>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.
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.
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.
If you look the table you will realize 9/10 means 9 of 10 included HW devices run. Is not a scale from 0 to 10. Is not a "out of ten" in usability scale. Just count the devices that work, vs. the ones included in the HW.
> 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 :-)
is there a similar thing for GPUs? I want to build a workstation and have it work on freebsd but would prefer to use an intel arc card which has no information about freebsd compatibility online
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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.
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> 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.
Replacing the wifi card isn't necessarily easy. I'd rather not buy and use a USB dongle for it if I can just get it out of the box.
I remember doing those kind of things nearly two decades ago now, I don't expect to have to do that in 2026. If people want to, that's fine, but the parent comment is right here: giving it 9/10 without working wifi is ridiculous.
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.
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.
There are modified BIOS firmware that allow any WiFi card. Good luck
I remember seeing something in that direction when I was looking but never did look deeper into it.
The post made me actually take out the laptop again and maybe use it as a server or something like that in the future and for that I'd use ethernet anyway.
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.
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).
> OpenBSD zealots claiming it's 110% secure because trust me bro
Or possibly because it has a good track record. If you'd like to point at actual vulnerabilities go ahead.
>Or possibly because it has a good track record.
"Only two remote code execution vulns in the default install" isn't saying much, because the default install has essentially no functionality. Similarly, RCE is not the only kind of vuln.
Let's just say it is not the mainstream consensus that OpenBSD is meaningfully more secure than an up-to-date linux. This may have been true in 1995, but it's generally acknowledged by people who know what they're talking about that OpenBSD's reputation for security is overstated.
It's not so much the vulnerabiltiies as that OpenBSD's mitigations often seem targeted towards imaginary issues.
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.
I don't understand this. I've been running Linux for decades, and FreeBSD for decades. Love both systems.
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.
>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
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.
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
OpenBSD doesn't have containers but does have a virtual machine system (vmm(4), vmd(8), vmctl(8)) in base.
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