In addition to the FreeBSD Foundation funding [1]work on s0ix sleep state support as part of their initiative to [2]improve FreeBSD's support for modern laptops , they have also been funding work on a number of other objectives, including better WiFi driver coverage. A milestone now being achieved for 2025 is getting a proof-of-concept Intel 802.11 a/b/g WiFi driver support working for this BSD operating system.

The FreeBSD Foundation has up on their blog today the first month's status report for enhancing laptop support and usability. As a sign of how far behind the FreeBSD wireless driver support sadly is, their WiFi work is marked by managing a proof-of-concept Intel 802.11 a/b/g WiFi driver. This Intel IWX WiFi driver isn't a new driver written from scratch but rather is based on code imported from OpenBSD via the Haiku OS project. This PoC driver has achieved network association and full 802.11 a/b/g functionality thus far. Mind you the 802.11g spec is now 22 years old and has long been succeeded by 802.11 n/ac/ax/be adapters.

The FreeBSD laptop project has also resulted in improved documentation for porting over updated Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) drivers from the Linux kernel to FreeBSD. The FreeBSD developers involved will next be working on re-basing their graphics driver support against what is found in the upstream Linux 6.12 LTS kernel but for now the Linux 6.7 kernel is their current porting milestone being celebrated.

Those wanting to learn more about the current FreeBSD laptop project efforts can find the monthly write-up on the [3]FreeBSD Foundation Blog .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/FreeBSD-S0ix-Goal

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/FreeBSD-Better-Laptops

[3] https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/laptop-support-and-usability-project-update-first-monthly-report-community-initiatives/