@mfru I tried running #FreeBSD on a #Lenovo #X260 a short while but gave up due to lack of time: I got a lot of it running, but also had a lot of paper cuts: #SwayWM was excellent, but when I tried to auto-lock my screen, the #Wayland session froze in a red screen and the only way to get rid of it was to open a console session and kill it. Also the messy #WiFi that can’t natively reach AC speeds and doesn’t roam between APs. I really want it to work for me, but…
@mfru I've run FreeBSD on my desktops (home and office) for nearly 30 years. The only issues that I've had:
* Software developers who believe that everything is Linux
* X (and apps) getting broken over time because developers believe that everything is Linux with the whole commercial Linux bloat stack
I wouldn't try to use it on a modern laptop because the hardware is just too specialized, poorly documented, and designed with vendor lock-in in mind. On my MBP I just run browsers and ssh.
@mfru My workstations have whatever Nvidia card was available without a fan at the time they were bought, and Nvidia hasn't broken their proprietary kernel blob yet (crosses fingers).
@mfru I have been running FreeBSD on my main machine for many many years.
At first on a desktop computer with a (quite legacy) nvidia card, the non-free driver was okay-ish, and got improved at some point 6~10 years ago.
Laptop used intel graphic cards and never caused trouble IIRC.
Suspend-resume works with my hardware, but I guess some laptops are better than others and YMMV. At some point I discovered and reported an issue in a release-candidate, but it was fixed before the release.
@mfru I have tried laptops with FreeBSD but it was always frustrating.
For my desktop it works, but it still needs some work. The biggest issue is software support. My graphics card works fine, but like most things, I had to figure out how to configure the driver.
Unless you want to tinker, I wouldn't recommend it. I think it's worth the pain because I want FreeBSD to succeed for technical and philosophical reasons.
@mfru on a Lenovo X1 (6th Gen), I'm thrilled with FreeBSD except for wifi and external display support, which are workable but awkward. Suspend/resume is great. Battery life is great. Performance is great, ... aside from the fingerprint reader and the two issues mentioned, every piece of hardware works great. I did some awkward rigging for my home directory to live on an encrypted ZFS volume, but I think next time I install I'll just do the whole disk in the installer.
Wireless works, but drops out periodically (on an Intel card, but similar experiences with a Realtek dongle), wifi captive portals on the go are 50/50.
I cannot hot plug and unplug external displays, whether USB-C or HDMI, any attached screens go black and X never recovers (even though this worked almost perfectly on the same machine with GhostBSD before I switched to regular); the trick I use is to plug or unplug while the machine is suspended, and the resume process clears something up; weird but not terrible, and at this point more reliable than macos on my other laptop. And FreeBSD will happily run the internal display plus 2 external displays, which is excellent.
I do have issues with zoom though, it doesn't work in any browser or under Linux compatibility, though that's really pretty squarely Zoom's fault (when I first started with FreeBSD on this machine I could run the Linux client perfectly understand Linux compat). Other video conferencing works just fine though, even in browser
@mfru #OpenBSD tends to work better out of the box for desktop use than #FreeBSD. But if it doesn’t work in OpenBSD, there probably isn’t a workaround. I love OpenBSD, but you have to know what you are getting into. No Bluetooth, reduced performance, no NVIDIA support. Intel GPU and WiFi work well. I’ve heard AMD GPU support is ok.
Both have great documentation, & the cohesiveness is a refreshing change from Linux’s duct-tape together feeling, though that has improved recently.
@samurro @mfru I think its simply because the developers want to be able to use it out of the box without much effort. #OpenBSD has this concept of using what’s in the base install, and that includes X11, vi, mg, and a pair of very usable window managers. Maybe by having less flexibility, they can better polish the options that are there. When I last tested #FreeBSD it felt like workstation use out of the box is not a priority.
@mfru Running it right now, typing to you from it right now.
IN GENERAL, it is pretty darn good; uses all of the same drivers as linux. Full upstream support from NVIDIA.
Right NOW, the freebsd drm package is based off of linux 5.10 instead of the latest 6.mumble, so on my newest of laptops (gen12 intels), I am running frame buffer. That said, it is flawless, it works.. I just am missing acceleration and use of the external display adapters.
@mfru I’ve had FreeBSD installed on old Thinkpads for years, mostly working well. The only real issues I’ve had are with suspend, which works on some models and not others. They all had Intel graphics and wifi which is well supported.
I’ve just upgraded to a Thinkpad X280 and everything is working great - including suspend. The only thing I need to sort now are tje hardware screen brightness keys, which sort of work but only in tiny increments.
@mfru I'm running #FreeBSD and #NetBSD across several architectures like Arm and AMD, with one graphics challenge on a motherboard without builtin video. NetBSD 9 would sometimes not boot, so I ran FreeBSD for a few months then installed the just-released NetBSD 10 RC1 and RC2.
Happy with VLC rendering local videos and streaming audio, plus a bit of #QGis mapping. NetBSD display with X is great over multiple monitors.
Looking at a used laptop with FreeBSD bundled, for later.
@mfru I use FreeBSD on my desktops and laptops. Have a 1U rack running Fedora for Docker / Kubernetes. BSD's battery life is comparable to Linux. Anecdotally, I've noticed it's better if you keep to the terminal and don't load X/Wayland. Wireless works, but not as well supported as Linux. Look to see if your card is supported and buy one that looks supported. Graphics cards have always worked for me. Never had an issue. But I've only used integrated Intel graphics cards. Never a gaming rig.
@RussSharek @mfru @solene woot woot, obsd/framework kindred soul ;) . it_just_works(TM)
@RussSharek @mfru Do volume up and down and brightness up and down keys work?
Volume keys work.
Function keys for brightness don't seem to, though I can change the brightness with xbacklight.
Might be something with my current config.
Ok. The brightness keys seem to "just work" for me in KDE on linux.
Under sway, i am able to bind the keys to exec a Linux command-line program called 'light' to change it.
And one more thing, on some Linuxes you have to blacklist a kernel module because of a conflict between libinput and hid-input. I don't know if there would emerge a similar conflict under OpenBSD and i did not have to do this blacklisting in NixOS
You have soared above my knowledge level.
I know these things are handled wildly differently, as they are completely different operating systems.
I'm running bspwm and the keys are likely either not defined or unbound.
They are responding as keypresses though, according to xev, so I suspect you can configure them.
@mfru All answers are subjective and contain differences depending on personal equipment. It would be best to test NomadBSD and/or GhostBSD distributions as live USB and decide.
@mfru FreeBSD-CURRENT since around 2015.
Hibernation is not a feature.
HP ZBook 17 G2, NVIDIA GK107GLM (Quadro K1100M), hybrid graphics disabled, KDE Plasma.
Audio is a PITA. Easier for me to use an iPad. <https://forums.FreeBSD.org/threads/no-sound-from-realtek-alc257-in-legion-y7000p-iah7.91850/post-638353>.
Can't use Wayland. tl;dr <https://codeberg.org/grahamperrin/freebsd-ports/issues/13#issuecomment-1435318>.
Sleep and wake are 99% reliable.
x11/nvidia-driver-470 <https://www.freshports.org/x11/nvidia-driver-470/>. After every wake, or vt(4) switch, this is necessary:
kwin_x11 --replace
I use KRunner to run that; it's separate from the 99% reliability observation.
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=vt&sektion=4&manpath=freebsd-release>
@mpts @mfru I think, truer to say that FreeBSD support for Intel GPUs is somewhat behind Linux.
<https://www.freshports.org/graphics/drm-61-kmod/> corresponding to Linux 6.1 DRM, added to the ports tree in 2024.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel_version_history> 6.1 released in December 2022.
@grahamperrin @mfru Good point.