What Made This Time Different
This time, I didn't just install FreeBSD.
I created a system for learning and success.
Clear goal: FreeBSD as my daily driver
Daily habit: 10 minutes minimum
Accountability: post the journey on Linkedin
Well, rms has never installed Linux so that's a step forward.
Here is what should worry everybody who care about FreeBSD and the "foundation", it seems it is being run into the ground [0]
> The board has said the deficit spending is intentional. They are drawing on reserves to invest more in the project, which makes sense in principle. > But at roughly the 2024 burn rate, the reserve fund might last about 4 to 5 years.
> One thing that caught my attention is that the EU Cyber Resilience Act starts in September 2026, and the Foundation already has six workstreams running to prepare for it. That kind of work costs money, and right now a lot of it seems to be funded from the same reserves that are shrinking.
This is also why you are hearing thing like FreeBSD "is investing in laptop support" or a KDE installer.
But this is not what is gonna "save" FreeBSD. People get interested and choose FreeBSD because it a great server OS, because of the ZFS support, jails, PF, stability and the coherent system overall.
They would do more for adoption by just making sure most VPS hosting services have it as an option along Linux than wasting infinite money on supporting "laptops".
See also [1], people are getting tired of that level of hypocrisy and waste of money.
- [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1rq0ucy/ive_been_g...
- [1] https://unixdigest.com/articles/hypocrisy-and-politics-in-fr...
Imagine Linus Torvalds or Theo from OpenBSD using Windows out of convenience. Unthinkable.
Gaze upon a premier Linux Foundation project:
Like, seriously, try to read this page content and understand what it is about.
https://fortune.com/2026/05/06/ceo-take-two-interactive-soft...
>she noted in the past every time she tried running FreeBSD on laptops [...]
It's very explicit that she has in fact tried this in the past. She's not some diversity hire, either. She's a former embedded firmware developer at IBM, IIRC.
Have you ever tried running FreeBSD on a laptop? I have. Unless you're using it plugged in at all times and never take it anywhere it has not historically been a very pleasant experience, hence this recent push to bring it into parity with Linux from the 2010s.
I don’t entirely fault FreeBSD for this either - it’s not where they see their niche. So, when you have comparatively limited engineering resources, they shouldn’t be wasting them on areas where their users don’t need them. I personally think that dogfooding your own OS makes for a better OS, but there are already decent laptop OS options.
Focusing on server deployments that don’t need much in terms of graphics or consumer wifi chip support isn’t that big of deal to me.
Battery life hasn't been the best story but at present it's pretty good. Same with Linux on that front, maybe still lagging a bit.
If you're going to be running a BSD on a laptop, do some research first and buy one that's well supported. Thinkpads are generally a good choice AFAIK, but you need to look more deeply than a brand or manufacturer.
Or they could support one laptop well, and the CEO uses that and not a sexy MacBook because it looks cool.
Oh rubbish.
When you're the head of something, you're paid to use their products if not for anything but image purposes.
Do you think the head of GM drives around in a Mustang?
Note that "FreeBSD Foundation" != "FreeBSD Project".
Obviously they're connected, but the FreeBSD Foundation supports the FreeBSD Project; they don't direct it. Governance of the FreeBSD Project vests in the FreeBSD core team, which is elected by FreeBSD developers; and as a FreeBSD developer I'm far more concerned with what OS members of the core team run than I am with what OS members of the Foundation run.
This is like that old argument that you can't wear leather belts "if you really are a vegetarian". Ugh.
Nah, it's not rubbish. The comments on just about any article featuring a woman in a tech leadership position are always the same here.
>When you're the head of something, you're paid to use their products if not for anything but image purposes.
Again you conveniently leave out the "on a laptop" qualifier.
10 minutes a day is about all I could tolerate of BSD on a laptop too.
That said, I am glad to see them focusing their efforts on something useful, like laptop compatibility. Regardless, this is a really dumb post. 10 minutes a day is not "daily driving."
> Loren Gurkowski is the daughter of Deb Goodkin. > Her brother Drew Gurkowski started working for the FreeBSD Foundation as an intern in 2015 and continued as a consultant starting in 2018, until December 2024.
If you founded a company I have no problem hiring yours kids. If you are elected or running a non profit relying on donations, you really have to be shameless to do that.
- [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1rq0ucy/comment/o9...
This still makes it like the 3rd operating system overall when it comes to hardware support.
(I have some old laptops, and as someone posted the other day the interesting thing about someone having LLM'ed a 802.11 driver, I'd might give it a go.)
(I'm interested in leaving linux and going to FreeBSD)
I mean I quite like the todo list that comes with my phone and computer and syncs flawlessly between the two of them. Ships with none of that shit.
One should be able to run a GUI on a "server," if they choose to do so. It's not arduous; here in 2026, servers are allowed to have GPUs. It's really OK. (My mom says we're even allowed to run LLMs on the FreeBSD server-box in her basement.)
One should be able to run a stodgy, reliable database on a "desktop," if they choose to do so. That may be best with a good filesystem, redundant storage, and some ECC RAM. But it's good for desktop systems to have these things. (And ZFS is a built-in, first-class filesystem on FreeBSD.)
I mean... It's not like we're talking about the difference between an IBM Multiprise 2000 and an SGI Octane here. Those days are over. We're mostly just using PCs for all roles these days.
These PCs run the same code in the same ways, whether packaged and sold as "server" or "desktop" units. The CPU parts are frequently even cut from the same literal cloth: A "desktop" Ryzen CCD and a "server" Epyc CCD are born on the same wafer before being packaged up differently.
The line betwixt server hardware and desktop hardware is presently murkier and less-defined than it ever has been before. Why should the operating system be different?
For the most part, no one has really picked up the gauntlet since aside from Apple on the desktop as a vertical computer company.
Of course, pieces of the tech still live on notably from Next computers, Acorn (ARM) and SGI.
I wish someone would use Linux as part of being a new vertical computer company OS and hardware on the desktop. Why? Baffling.
If FreeBSD was a desktop OS this might be reasonable, but it’s simply not. This is akin to complaining that the executive director of the Linux Foundation (I assume) does not run Kubernetes on their toaster oven.
lol. That’s not the definition of a daily driver. Thats something I really don’t want to do, like pushups.
Anyone who wrote this has no business with FreeBSD or open source.