FreeBSD Desktop

R

rami_bachar

Guest
Hi,

I'm using FreeBSD for almost 14 years. and want to run it on my desktop/laptops (with recent hardware and not 2 years old hardware). I think that the FreeBSD community should focus more on having a FreeBSD desktop.

I know that with a specific modules of Laptops and hardware I can have more success but its still not good (without comparing it to anything else) something always is not working or not supported yet.

PC-BSD will be a good option if I only succeeded booting the sh.. USB stick (GRUB issue with my BIOS/display) its maybe not the place to complain about it but GRUB is the worst thing ever written on a computer, and now its coming to FreeBSD unfortunately.

Well without writing to much, I really think that the communality should focus on amd64/x86 hardware support and remove the efforts writing code for platforms that nobody needs really for example IA64/PPC/SPARC.
 
Hi,

I'm using FreeBSD almost 14y.

Great! :)

I want to run it on my desktop/laptops (with recent hardware and not 2y old hardware)
I think that the FreeBSD community should focus more on having a FreeBSD desktop

I know that with a specific modules of Laptops and hardware i can have more success but its still not good (without comparing it to anything else) something always is not working or not supported yet.
PCBSD will be a good option if i only succeeded booting the sh.. usb stick
(grub issue with my bios/display) its maybe not the place to complain about it but GRUB is the worst thing ever written on a computer ,and now its cumming to FreeBSD unfortunately.

well without writing to much, I really think that the communality should focus on amd64/x86 hardware support and remove the efforts writing code for platforms that nobody needs really for example IA64/PPC/SPARC

First keep in mind FreeBSD is an open source community project much smaller than the Linux community and with mostly unpaid developers working absolutely free. Being an open source and unpaid developer gives you the option to work on whatever you like or interests you. No amount of complaining can change that.

Some things you can do however to improve your hardware support:
  1. Develop, test, and improve hardware drivers you need yourself. Imagine the smiling faces of all those who could benefit from your hard work?
  2. Convince manufacturers of unsupported hardware you use to create FreeBSD compatible software/drivers. Just think, you would seriously be a hero to some people for succeeding in this. :)
  3. Find and offer to fund a FreeBSD developer(s) to add the hardware support you need. FreeBSD developers appreciate being able to buy food to put on the table for their families too.
  4. Donate and convince others you know that use FreeBSD to donate to the FreeBSD Foundation which does sometimes pay for developers to add support for currently unsupported hardware when it can.
  5. Submit bug reports for unsupported hardware. Sometimes all that's simply needed for a piece of newer hardware to work is tweaking an already existing and compatible driver to include the newer hardware name with no other changes and can be added quickly. No one can do that if they don't know about it. FreeBSD developers are good, but are not telepathic regardless of what they may sometimes tell you. ;)
 
Because I donate almost every month I say this, if not I will stay quiet and say thanks that I can even use it for free.
I totally agree that hardware manufactures need to support their hardware or at least release the source drivers to the community.
 
GhostBSD may be another option. I tried it recently on a VM, and it seems as if it might be a better choice, at present, to recommend to newcomers than PC-BSD which is more resource intensive.

I'm always a bit torn about this--I would like it to become more popular so that vendors (both hardware and software) pay attention. However the danger of becoming too popular is that then too many people try to write simple GUIs that make it harder to do the things that it is already good at doing, such as doing something like what RedHat did, crippling its text mode installer and replacing it with a GUI one.
 
Thanks, but my hardware (most of it) is not working in FreeBSD 10.x. ATI catalyst hd8000 not supported yet, my WiFi Broadcom not supported yet, onboard Atheros LAN not supported (only in FreeBSD11). This is just a Lenovo g505s not something special.
 
ati catalyst hd8000 not supported yet
my WiFi broadlom not supported yet onboard Atheros lan not supported(only in FBSD11)
As a 14-year user, you then know that FreeBSD has no control over that and it's up to the manufacturer of those boards to provide the drivers for support. To come here to complain about it is misdirected. You should go to their forums and complain and write emails to them. Coming here to do this won't make anything happen cause FreeBSD can't do anything about it.
 
But many of the drivers are ported from the Linux drivers (provided by the manufacturer) and some are written from scratch, my point is not to complain it was just making the efforts where it more important, than supporting platform that most of us don't care about it a waste of good resources, just say. anyway my intention is not to create an argument here. I will still use it on the servers and for the desktop I can use something else.
 
There are several different issues:

ATI Radeon support: kernel and driver updates are needed, and both are under process. So is Intel Haswell video support.

Broadcom has a history of not providing programming information about their wireless cards, making support for them very difficult. Contact Broadcom and ask them to provide programming information to FreeBSD developers.

If there is support for anything in FreeBSD -CURRENT but not in earlier releases or -STABLE, often it is relatively easy to MFC. Contact a developer and convince them to do so. It might take a crowdfunding effort, or convincing the Foundation, or maybe just finding the right developer.
 
For the ATI I use vesa for now and it's OK (I don't play games) and for the Wifi I use Edimax USB and have ordered an Intel Centrino 135 that I saw is supported on 11-current (hope it's in the BIOS whitelist as documented) and then will see what's with suspend resume (I think it works).
 
Incidentally, there was a Broadcom guy at BSDCan this year, and I stopped him and asked about wireless support. He was working on the wired drivers, and was noncommittal about the wireless stuff, but it did not sound hopeless.
 
I know if you want good vendor support you need Nvidia and Atheros (most of them) but somehow I was tempted with this Lenovo and its price/specs. If only I could chain the GPU off and replace it with Nvidia it will be perfect :)
 
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