9mo ago

FreeBSD To See Better Laptop Support With Investment Backed By AMD, Dell & Framework.

www.phoronix.com

FreeBSD To See Better Laptop Support With Investment Backed By AMD, Dell & Framework

28 comments

Cool 😎 Anything developed fro FreeBSD can be ported to Linux if needed.
Unfortunately improvements made on Linux can't be ported back.
This is due to the license terms, But this is also the reason IBM, Google and many others have to contribute back to Linux, and Apple doesn't to FreeBSD.
- playstation run on freebsd too
  
  I was completely unaware of that, but it checks out:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_4_system_software
  No doubt FreeBSD benefit big corps, but big corps have problems benefiting FreeBSD.
- Apple doesn't use that much of FreeBSD, and what they use hasn't been updated in ages.
  And I don't think there's much sense porting FreeBSD device drivers to Linux, I think they are different enough. And the article is about things most important for device drivers and other kernel-level things.
  
  MacOS and iOS have Freebsd inside their kernel. The reason it doesn't appear to have been updated in ages is the problem listed by the OP: The BSD license meant that Apple could take without ever giving back. Which is what they did.
Very happy to read that, but honestly, when reading "$1 million USD" as investment sum, it reads more like an advertisement stunt than a real investment. (Like, 2 senior developers for one year?)
We need more diversity in Open Source operating systems for desktops, laptops and any of the *BSDs is a great candidate. (Would love to see Haiku getting some sponsorship or even ReactOS!)
- I think they port FreeBSD's network card drivers to Haiku. So this may affect it positively too.
But why?
- There are BSD shops out there. Not everyone wants to live under GPL restrictions.
- Other than the obvious reasons that Linux is not everyone's piece of cake - just to have alternatives ready in case it becomes like Chrome.
- Helping FreeBSD stay afloat. But maybe there is a license issue from companies point of view: BSD-2-Clause vs. GPL v2.
Cool, bsd works fine for laptops, but the power management is pretty shit.
Also the wifi support too.
Otherwise I love my freebsd thinkpad, works great when plugged in, but again the wifi is painfully slow.
- Can't they just port the Linux drivers?
  
  Easier said than done, and they can't copy because gpl.
The shittiness of that stack of laptops in the photo hurts my soul
- I dunno, it looks like two framework laptops and a modern macbook pro. They could be doing far worse if that's what those are.
  
  This photo?
worked well for apple.

28 comments