Live data from Hacker News

FreeBSD on the Framework Laptop

xyinn.org

71–80 of 163 posts

Re: FreeBSD on the Framework Laptop

#71
post #9
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jesus christ. exactly. this is the kind of bs i like to call out when i see the usual freebsd desktop thread. it's going to work mostly okay-ish, as long as you don't mine some abominations like that running on your systems in the background. this really reminds me my linux experiences circa 2005-2006 (ndiswrapper for wifi cards, do people remember that?).

Totally agree. Wonder the use case why they don’t run Linux and put FreeBSD in a VM where everything would work perfectly.

Good point, actually. These days everything pretty much runs on VMs anyway…

Re: FreeBSD on the Framework Laptop

#72

Man, FreeBSD really needs some driver love... * No Suspend/Resume? Linux has solved this for years, I have not come across a laptop in the last 10 years that had trouble with s2r or s2d (but I guess that there might be a few that don't fully support it, I mainly tested Dell laptops) * WiFi driver and Ethernet over USB-C both highly unstable? That's an Intel chipset, those are usually the more stable ones (at least on…

if FreeBSD had a copyleft license, maybe companies would have a reason to publish their drivers, or you could port drivers from Linux.

Yeah, because Linux’s copyleft is what forced nVidia to publish decent open source drivers 15 years ago.

Re: FreeBSD on the Framework Laptop

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am glad FreeBSD exists. Not every commercial venture has the luxury to release their source code, even if they wanted to. If you're writing software for banks or defense, the source needs to be closed. FreeBSD enables these companies to exist and while consumer grade drivers are not available, many things in FreeBSD are rock solid. Thanks to commercial contributions.

For my hobby server of 1000+ days [1] uptime with ram failing. A raid controller on the brink. I've amazed at the solidarity of FreeBSD. [1] https://i.redd.it/2omcrsz8ut691.png * i am aware how in todays time you shouldn't, updates, and blah blah. But not required.

Are you saying FreeBSD is not robust? Did you confirm that it is the operating system that is leaking memory and not your application? If that's true, that's huge and you should file a report. Better yet, write a blog post about the details and how to recreate it.

Re: FreeBSD on the Framework Laptop

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if FreeBSD had a copyleft license, maybe companies would have a reason to publish their drivers, or you could port drivers from Linux.

Yeah, because Linux’s copyleft is what forced nVidia to publish decent open source drivers 15 years ago.

I would say that linux isn't able to strong-arm nvidia into complying because nvidia can just go back to distributing their closed-source driver on permissively-licensed OSes such as BSD.

Re: FreeBSD on the Framework Laptop

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my hobby server of 1000+ days [1] uptime with ram failing. A raid controller on the brink. I've amazed at the solidarity of FreeBSD. [1] https://i.redd.it/2omcrsz8ut691.png * i am aware how in todays time you shouldn't, updates, and blah blah. But not required.

Are you saying FreeBSD is not robust? Did you confirm that it is the operating system that is leaking memory and not your application? If that's true, that's huge and you should file a report. Better yet, write a blog post about the details and how to recreate it.

I read that as "the hardware is failing but FreeBSD is still trucking right along"

Re: FreeBSD on the Framework Laptop

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if FreeBSD had a copyleft license, maybe companies would have a reason to publish their drivers, or you could port drivers from Linux.

I am glad FreeBSD exists. Not every commercial venture has the luxury to release their source code, even if they wanted to. If you're writing software for banks or defense, the source needs to be closed. FreeBSD enables these companies to exist and while consumer grade drivers are not available, many things in FreeBSD are rock solid. Thanks to commercial contributions.

I disagree. Work on permissively licensed software typically has the net effect of decreasing global freedom by reducing the costs of corporations to produce proprietary software. I try to avoid contributing to permissively-licensed software when possible, and I prefer to co-operate with businesses that use free software to avoid vendor lock-in as much as possible.

Why should we all do free work for corporations? At least with the GPL you can negotiate a commercial license in exchange for money, but with a permissive license you forfeit your ability to do that.

This article accurately sums up my point of view: https://lukesmith.xyz/articles/why-i-use-the-gpl-and-not-cuc...

Also, the GPL does not require you to share the source code for programs that you do not distribute outside your company.

Re: FreeBSD on the Framework Laptop

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if FreeBSD had a copyleft license, maybe companies would have a reason to publish their drivers, or you could port drivers from Linux.

That’s probably true but it cuts both ways too. I don’t know if the lack of copy left license is the problem as much as the momentum. The various Unix and BSD wars (that were predicated on a much different licensing challenge) and splintering of the communities has meant there was never a big way for developer or even manufacturer interest to really focus. OpenBSD has a very different philosophy related to drivers th…

This is a question of pure ignorance at this layer, but is or why isn't there a standard for drivers that can follow a similar way of building an interface? Or maybe its not even possible due to entirely different purposes of the device.

Re: FreeBSD on the Framework Laptop

#79
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that different from a Linux user using NDISwrapper to run a Windows wireless driver on Linux.

NDISwrapper was more like wine, it implements APIs but doesn't run any sort of virtual CPU.

Spiritually it was the same concept though... if you can't get a driver for your Linux OS, use the driver from another OS. This just seems to take that to be extreme -- don't just use the driver from another OS, actually use the driver FROM the other OS!

Re: FreeBSD on the Framework Laptop

#80

Man, FreeBSD really needs some driver love... * No Suspend/Resume? Linux has solved this for years, I have not come across a laptop in the last 10 years that had trouble with s2r or s2d (but I guess that there might be a few that don't fully support it, I mainly tested Dell laptops) * WiFi driver and Ethernet over USB-C both highly unstable? That's an Intel chipset, those are usually the more stable ones (at least on…

I have that same intel wifi nic. On Linux, it also caused crashes on resume from suspend to disk (worked OK on resume from S3 suspend to ram). I added a hook script, that on suspend to disk, downs the interface, if it was up, and unloads the kernel module before suspend. It reloads the module on resume, and if interface was up before suspend, it brings the interface back up. Now resume from suspend to disk is reliable.

Not sure if the hook script is still necessary (kernel version has updated a couple times since), but it doesn't cause any issues, so I haven't taken the time to check.

Not exactly "worked out of the box". Easy fix, but the same fix is available on *bsd too.

Post reply on HN