Let me know when you can get a Dell XPS 13 (2024/25) working with FreeBSD out of the box without the need to hunt documentation down for the following.
- audio
- wifi
- biometrics
- GPU drivers that work well.
That's the answer I'd give to someone asking me to just run linux when I'm ranting about some commercial OS.
But I think the point of FreeBSD is more to provide something that you wouldn't get otherwise, and justifies going above and beyond to get it properly working.
My own anecdote is running the 4x and then 5x versions on my cobbled parts crappy desktop as a student and getting excelent perfs for how cheap it was, while still having linux level CJK and multi-input support and stellar stability.
I wouldn't do that anymore, but hope it stays an option for those with other specific needs that a BSD OS would help.
Unless you're trying to run your XPS on FreeBSD 3.x, I don't see what that has to do with either comment in this thread. Really really old OSs had problems. Current OSs also have problems, including that no OS supports all hardware, but I don't really see any connection between an anecdote about sound problems literally last century and missing drivers today.
Everything I mentioned many would consider to be essential parts of their system that should work, and would then fall under "Support and Usability" initiatives.
I guess I'm pointing out that his experience 20 something years ago is still relevant today, even if there's a lower barrier to entry now.
Do the biometrics work on Linux? Last time I had a laptop with a fingerprint reader the whole thing was controlled by some Broadcom thing that was hostile to anything not made by Microsoft. A fingerprint reader is a highly optional feature so it's not a problem if it is not working.
Yeah, I was also thinking of pointing out that I own a Dell XPS and AFAIK its fingerprint reader has never worked on Linux and the GPU is... well, it works these days, but Nvidia still isn't exactly the nicest thing on Linux.
My fingerprint worked out of the box on Linux Mint, as did NVIDIA Prime with the mobile 3080. Hibernation is historically (and still is) the main issue in linux land for me.
* And I believe those hibernation issues are related to corrupted graphics stacks because Nvidia, ha.
