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> Currently, FreeBSD lags behind in key areas such as [...] laptop-specific functionalities like suspend/resume Many years ago I migrated to FreeBSD and absolu

> Currently, FreeBSD lags behind in key areas such as [...] laptop-specific functionalities like suspend/resume Many years ago I migrated to FreeBSD and absolutely loved it. I was forced to migrate back to Linux once I started a job and ended up staying with Linux to this day. A few months back I decided to give FreeBSD another shot. The one thing that was an immediate deal breaker was being unable to suspend/resume on my desktop computer. For my workflow, that's an unnecessary waste of power / energy. Just wanted to share this testimonial to outline the importance of suspend/resume for non-laptop hardware. Almost every time I see this discussion, it's focused on laptops. By the way, I'm extremely excited about this initiative to make FreeBSD more attractive to non-server users in general (not only new ones). That will surely be a huge benefit to the entire community. If I can't run FreeBSD on my machine, I won't runt it on my servers.

jmclnx 2y ago
I use to be a FreeBSD user ages ago, but stopped at v5. I tried again at v8 and loved it, but back then I had to remove it due to disk space. But one think bothered me. They love to patch some packages, a notable one is ssh. I wish at least in that case they trust the OpenBSD folks :) But one thing I like a lot is jails and I had a jail for GIMPS and an ssh portal to transfer files to/from work. I think jails are much better than Linux docker and friends. I wonder if creating jails have gotten easier since v8 ? Now all I have is laptops, and I have stayed away because of I heard of poor laptop support. I toy with giving FreeBSD a shot again, but will wait for the outcome of the Laptop project they started.
- napsterbr 2y ago
  > I wonder if creating jails have gotten easier since v8? I think iocage was released after v8, so yes, definitely! Not only creating, but managing jails as a whole. In many ways, iocage can be compared to docker when it comes to container management.
mmsc 2y ago
One of the problems with suspend/resume is simply: nobody is looking at it or trying to improve it. There is no progress because nobody has tried. The current recommendation is "if suspend/resume doesn't work, disable all of the drivers until you work out which one (of many?) is causing the issue, and work on a fix - sure, people could do that, but most won't - and not even knowing which driver is the issue is annoying. Until recently, rc scripts (think initd on Linux) had functionality that could be executed on system resume, but not on system suspend - like stopping a service on suspend. Why? Simply because nobody added that functionality for ages [0]. Similarly, drivers often have suspension but not resume capabilities (why?) which means they need to be added by someone who actually tries to use suspend/resume. [1] is an example of this (around midway through the section). I recently took the time to get FreeBSD set up on my MacBook Pro from 2015, and it took quite a few kernel patches to get it working - many of which I don't think should have been missing already [2]. Webcam support is another issue; at the moment, webcamd is unmaintained because the developer passed away. Even then, it is just an emulator for Linux's USB subsystem and relies on some random person's GitHub for v4l2-loopback support using a branch called "my-build"[3]. Wifi is also an issue, with the best option for fast wifi support being the usage of a nano Alpine Linux VM, and using Linux's drivers [4]. If your wifi device is even supported, it's probably quite slow. If all three of these things ever progress, I can see FreeBSD being more accepted by the masses. It is a great OS, but for personal computing, there are clear issues. 0: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/2cf8ef5910fd3754f8021f9c67fde6b9d9030f33 https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/2cf8ef5910fd37... 1: https://joshua.hu/FreeBSD-on-MacbookPro-114-A1398#building-with-source-code https://joshua.hu/FreeBSD-on-MacbookPro-114-A1398#building-w... 2: https://joshua.hu/FreeBSD-on-MacbookPro-114-A1398 https://joshua.hu/FreeBSD-on-MacbookPro-114-A1398 3: https://github.com/swills/v4l2loopback/tree/my-build https://github.com/swills/v4l2loopback/tree/my-build 4: https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=wifibox&apropos=0&sektion=8&manpath=freebsd-ports&format=html https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=wifibox&apropos=0&...
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  It’s crazy to expect every single user interested in using this feature to individually test the possibilities. There’s no one collecting and collating driver compatibility information?
_lvbh 2y ago
Am I the only one that never uses suspend/resume? If I'll be away from my laptop, I save everything and shut it down. If something is running, I plug it in and lock the screen.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  Idk about “the only one” but surely that’s rare. Why would you want to take the time to save, quit, reboot, and reopen everything instead of closing your laptop which takes less than a second?
- 10000truths 2y ago
  Suspend-to-disk does pretty much that - it saves the contents of your RAM to swap. Suspend/resume should be transparent to most applications, perhaps excepting those that rely on a real-time network connection.
- PhilipRoman 2y ago
  I used to do the same, but being able to put my laptop on a shelf for a week or two and get back to what I was doing is really convenient. It's basically as if you had instant fast boot with no downsides.
- kotojo 2y ago
  I don't think I've ever powered a computer down completely outside of troubleshooting issues or restarting for updates since the 90s.
  - devilbunny 2y ago
    I did, routinely, with my ThinkPad until a month or two ago. See, it would surreptitously turn itself back on (to hit Windows Update!) and kill its battery overnight. I tried turning everything off; didn't work. Just over a month ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41442490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41442490 was posted. I went into the BIOS, changed the "sleep mode" to "Linux" (at least ThinkPads still consider this), and... in sleep mode, I lost about 2-3% of battery overnight. Tops. I still hibernate for most situations, as I don't use the laptop much, but when I know I'm going to be using it often, it's nothing, and it works the way things were supposed to.
rootnod3 2y ago
I think what FreeBSD and any other systems need is either compatibility or something similar to NixOS. Declarative systems management seems ripe for BSD derivatives. But it has to be done right. As much as I love GUIX for example, GUIX is hampered by not being able to support a lot of hardware by design.
- Y_Y 2y ago
  Guix supports plenty of hardware if you run the mainline kernel. https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix
- riffraff 2y ago
  What is in the guix design that makes it unable to support a lot of hardware?
IWeldMelons 2y ago
Yes borked suspend is a big deal for me too.
crest 2y ago
Suspending desktop systems is unusual, but these days traditional ACPI S3 (and S4) suspend is missing from more and more systems in favor of the far less efficient modern suspend just so your notification terror continues around the clock.
redprince 2y ago
> If I can't run FreeBSD on my machine, I won't runt it on my servers. How does offering a laptop or desktop OS experience relate to being a great server OS? Anyway, the last time I was using FreeBSD on a client was in the late 90s. I am still running FreeBSD servers. It never bothered me that running that particular OS on a laptop maybe could be a challenge. The FreeBSD project has limited resources in terms of money and developers and I'm quite content seeing that going towards building a great server OS. Diverting people and money towards a better laptop support just means competing with Linux and I don't see FreeBSD bringing something really compelling to the table. At best it'll just do everything Linux already does.
- amaccuish 2y ago
  For some, but I like having the same thing run everywhere, there's less mental load.
LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago
It really depends hard on the quality of the systems firmware, i.e. the BIOS/UEFI, no matter if laptop or desktop/thinclient. I recently got some obsolete/EOL thinkcenters for homelabbing fun. They do S3(suspend to RAM) with everything I've thrown at them. Even most exotic stuff like https://genode.org/ https://genode.org/ (though only running 'live' from the USB-Image that they offer, didn't install so far). FreeBSD did it, NetBSD did it, various Linux Distros did it, without exception. The one currently running does it, too, without having had to setup anything. Be it via the little power-button on the front, or some hot-key combination choosable from the UEFI, OR simply another hot-key delivered by the keyboard. In my case that blue thing between ALT-GR and right-CTRL+F12, then slapping any key afterwards turning it back on. (might by undesirable if you have cats, kids, whatever) Anyways, WITHOUT exception! I did try this like mad, off'n on off'n on like a stroboscope, at least a 100 times.

jmclnx 2y ago

I use to be a FreeBSD user ages ago, but stopped at v5. I tried again at v8 and loved it, but back then I had to remove it due to disk space. But one think bothered me. They love to patch some packages, a notable one is ssh. I wish at least in that case they trust the OpenBSD folks :) But one thing I like a lot is jails and I had a jail for GIMPS and an ssh portal to transfer files to/from work. I think jails are much better than Linux docker and friends. I wonder if creating jails have gotten easier since v8 ? Now all I have is laptops, and I have stayed away because of I heard of poor laptop support. I toy with giving FreeBSD a shot again, but will wait for the outcome of the Laptop project they started.

napsterbr 2y ago
> I wonder if creating jails have gotten easier since v8? I think iocage was released after v8, so yes, definitely! Not only creating, but managing jails as a whole. In many ways, iocage can be compared to docker when it comes to container management.

mmsc 2y ago

One of the problems with suspend/resume is simply: nobody is looking at it or trying to improve it. There is no progress because nobody has tried. The current recommendation is "if suspend/resume doesn't work, disable all of the drivers until you work out which one (of many?) is causing the issue, and work on a fix - sure, people could do that, but most won't - and not even knowing which driver is the issue is annoying. Until recently, rc scripts (think initd on Linux) had functionality that could be executed on system resume, but not on system suspend - like stopping a service on suspend. Why? Simply because nobody added that functionality for ages [0]. Similarly, drivers often have suspension but not resume capabilities (why?) which means they need to be added by someone who actually tries to use suspend/resume. [1] is an example of this (around midway through the section). I recently took the time to get FreeBSD set up on my MacBook Pro from 2015, and it took quite a few kernel patches to get it working - many of which I don't think should have been missing already [2]. Webcam support is another issue; at the moment, webcamd is unmaintained because the developer passed away. Even then, it is just an emulator for Linux's USB subsystem and relies on some random person's GitHub for v4l2-loopback support using a branch called "my-build"[3]. Wifi is also an issue, with the best option for fast wifi support being the usage of a nano Alpine Linux VM, and using Linux's drivers [4]. If your wifi device is even supported, it's probably quite slow. If all three of these things ever progress, I can see FreeBSD being more accepted by the masses. It is a great OS, but for personal computing, there are clear issues. 0: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/2cf8ef5910fd3754f8021f9c67fde6b9d9030f33 https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/2cf8ef5910fd37... 1: https://joshua.hu/FreeBSD-on-MacbookPro-114-A1398#building-with-source-code https://joshua.hu/FreeBSD-on-MacbookPro-114-A1398#building-w... 2: https://joshua.hu/FreeBSD-on-MacbookPro-114-A1398 https://joshua.hu/FreeBSD-on-MacbookPro-114-A1398 3: https://github.com/swills/v4l2loopback/tree/my-build https://github.com/swills/v4l2loopback/tree/my-build 4: https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=wifibox&apropos=0&sektion=8&manpath=freebsd-ports&format=html https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=wifibox&apropos=0&...

MichaelZuo 2y ago
It’s crazy to expect every single user interested in using this feature to individually test the possibilities. There’s no one collecting and collating driver compatibility information?

_lvbh 2y ago

Am I the only one that never uses suspend/resume? If I'll be away from my laptop, I save everything and shut it down. If something is running, I plug it in and lock the screen.

School-Cotton 2y ago
Idk about “the only one” but surely that’s rare. Why would you want to take the time to save, quit, reboot, and reopen everything instead of closing your laptop which takes less than a second?
10000truths 2y ago
Suspend-to-disk does pretty much that - it saves the contents of your RAM to swap. Suspend/resume should be transparent to most applications, perhaps excepting those that rely on a real-time network connection.
PhilipRoman 2y ago
I used to do the same, but being able to put my laptop on a shelf for a week or two and get back to what I was doing is really convenient. It's basically as if you had instant fast boot with no downsides.
kotojo 2y ago
I don't think I've ever powered a computer down completely outside of troubleshooting issues or restarting for updates since the 90s.
- devilbunny 2y ago
  I did, routinely, with my ThinkPad until a month or two ago. See, it would surreptitously turn itself back on (to hit Windows Update!) and kill its battery overnight. I tried turning everything off; didn't work. Just over a month ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41442490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41442490 was posted. I went into the BIOS, changed the "sleep mode" to "Linux" (at least ThinkPads still consider this), and... in sleep mode, I lost about 2-3% of battery overnight. Tops. I still hibernate for most situations, as I don't use the laptop much, but when I know I'm going to be using it often, it's nothing, and it works the way things were supposed to.

rootnod3 2y ago

I think what FreeBSD and any other systems need is either compatibility or something similar to NixOS. Declarative systems management seems ripe for BSD derivatives. But it has to be done right. As much as I love GUIX for example, GUIX is hampered by not being able to support a lot of hardware by design.

Y_Y 2y ago
Guix supports plenty of hardware if you run the mainline kernel. https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix
riffraff 2y ago
What is in the guix design that makes it unable to support a lot of hardware?

IWeldMelons 2y ago

Yes borked suspend is a big deal for me too.

crest 2y ago

Suspending desktop systems is unusual, but these days traditional ACPI S3 (and S4) suspend is missing from more and more systems in favor of the far less efficient modern suspend just so your notification terror continues around the clock.

redprince 2y ago

> If I can't run FreeBSD on my machine, I won't runt it on my servers. How does offering a laptop or desktop OS experience relate to being a great server OS? Anyway, the last time I was using FreeBSD on a client was in the late 90s. I am still running FreeBSD servers. It never bothered me that running that particular OS on a laptop maybe could be a challenge. The FreeBSD project has limited resources in terms of money and developers and I'm quite content seeing that going towards building a great server OS. Diverting people and money towards a better laptop support just means competing with Linux and I don't see FreeBSD bringing something really compelling to the table. At best it'll just do everything Linux already does.

amaccuish 2y ago
For some, but I like having the same thing run everywhere, there's less mental load.

LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago

It really depends hard on the quality of the systems firmware, i.e. the BIOS/UEFI, no matter if laptop or desktop/thinclient. I recently got some obsolete/EOL thinkcenters for homelabbing fun. They do S3(suspend to RAM) with everything I've thrown at them. Even most exotic stuff like https://genode.org/ https://genode.org/ (though only running 'live' from the USB-Image that they offer, didn't install so far). FreeBSD did it, NetBSD did it, various Linux Distros did it, without exception. The one currently running does it, too, without having had to setup anything. Be it via the little power-button on the front, or some hot-key combination choosable from the UEFI, OR simply another hot-key delivered by the keyboard. In my case that blue thing between ALT-GR and right-CTRL+F12, then slapping any key afterwards turning it back on. (might by undesirable if you have cats, kids, whatever) Anyways, WITHOUT exception! I did try this like mad, off'n on off'n on like a stroboscope, at least a 100 times.