Is it sort of like OpenBSD? I liked their manpages and their built in server thing (httpd). or is it completely different...
For example, I installed FreeBSD on an old laptop and had to fiddle with building Xorg to get a GUI. Same laptop on OpenBSD just worked after running the installer.
Ports tree in general is a great way to install third-party software, but not necessarily for Xorg.
You still install KDE or GNOME through ports/packages on both systems, but X being more tightly integrated with the base system has benefits in reducing complexity for the rest of the components.
This was especially notable at BSD-wide events like BSDCan, AsiaBSDCon, EuroBSDCon etc.
OpenBSD supports suspend to disk, whereas FreeBSD does not. (Is this being changed as part of this laptop project?)
OpenBSD has always supported graphics, sound and other desktop things in the default kernel, without having to tinker with kernel config or loadable kernel modules. FreeBSD? http://cr.yp.to/unix/feedme.html
Also, on OpenBSD, the basic X is part of the base system, in the xenocara repository, and it basically just works, straight from the default installer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenocara
OpenBSD actually does NOT support loadable kernel modules at all, and you're strongly discouraged from running a customer kernel, too. This has a side effect that both graphics and sound works out of the box, since deviation from defaults is discouraged, and if it didn't work by default, it'd not be recommended in the first place.
On FreeBSD, even the most basic X stuff is part of the Ports tree, which basically implies that most installations wouldn't have it, and it's often far less integrated, and requires way more tinkering, than xenocara on OpenBSD. For example, when you know most of your installations wouldn't have X, would you have graphics and sound support in the default kernel, or would that require further tinkering of the kernel config and/or LKM?
(On both systems, you still install KDE and GNOME from ports/packages, if needed, it's only the lightweight basic X and WM stuff that's part of OpenBSD base xenocara.)
So, even though FreeBSD is faster and more popular in many ways, to most people's surprise, OpenBSD actually has better laptop support.
zfs and boot encryption make it perfect.
- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2022/04/14/freebsd-13-1-on-th...
.. and recently moved to FrankenPad T25 that is based on T480 (because keyboard):
- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/06/26/freebsd-14-3-on-fr...
I do everything on FreeBSD including work.
Some of the topics I covered:
- Unlock Laptop with Phone
- Conferencing and Meetings
- Netflix Signal Telegram
- Network Management with network.sh
- FreeBSD Power Management
- FreeBSD Suspend/Resume
- Oldschool Gaming on FreeBSD
- Minecraft Server in FreeBSD Jails Container
- Secure Containerized Browser
- Print on FreeBSD
- Scan on FreeBSD
- Sensible Firefox Setup
- Operate Android Device on FreeBSD
- FreeBSD Alongside Windows
To just name a few ... because I am slowly closing to 200 of these FreeBSD related articles.
% ls ~/misc/verblog/POSTS | wc -l
175
Can you clarify by what this means? Does that mean running Android in an emulator or something else? Thanks
https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-6390-wake...
Also pretty impressive because Aymeric started as a GSoC contributor and is now sponsored to work on BSD by the foundation.
On Linux there's been some effort:
https://www.linaro.org/blog/linux-on-snapdragon-x-elite/
Ed: hn discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44699393
tlhunter•3h ago
I can't wait until the experience is good enough that I can stay on it.
FirmwareBurner•3h ago
mouse_•3h ago
Linux does not play nice with batteries.
myaccountonhn•3h ago
rootnod3•2h ago
FirmwareBurner•3h ago
rurban•2h ago
tracker1•2h ago
t-3•42m ago
yjftsjthsd-h•2h ago
grahamjperrin•2h ago
How is OpenZFS second class on Linux?
<https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/> is not perceptibly FreeBSD-first.
SvenL•1h ago
chungy•1h ago
vermaden•1h ago
While You can spend some hours installing Linux with ZFSBootMenu and LUKS encrypted Root on ZFS - there are ZERO Linux distributions that allow ZFS Boot Environments out of the box.
That is the reason 'why' Linux is not the first class ZFS citizen.
philjohn•2h ago
I last ran it about two decades ago, so it's been a while.
vermaden•1h ago
If you want a powerful development/work environment - and you do like what and how Linux provides here - use Linux - but as I was not satisfied with what/how Linux provided I looked somewhere else and I landed in FreeBSD.
Here are some of the reasons and conclusions I came to after using FreeBSD (and also Linux/AIX/HP-UX/Solaris in various jobs) for about 20 years.
Here:
- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/
grahamjperrin•3h ago
Very rough notes – things were rushed (squeezing as much as possible into the end of a Friday afternoon):
https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1mey64f/hp_elitebo...
pjmlp•9m ago
Last time I was able to do that was with netbooks, and even those were mostly OEM specific distros without updates, if we wanted to actually have 100% supported hardware.