FreeBSD laptop progress

The FreeBSD Foundation has a blog
post about the progress it has made in 2025 on the Laptop Support
& Usability Project for FreeBSD. The foundation committed
$750,000 to the project in 2025 and has made progress on graphics
drivers, Wi-Fi 4 and 5 support, audio improvements, sleep states,
and more.

The installer for FreeBSD has gained a couple of new features that
benefit laptop users. In 15.0 the installer now supports downloading
and installing firmware packages after the FreeBSD base system
installation is complete. Coming in 15.1 it will be possible to
install the KDE graphical desktop environment during the installation
process. Grateful thanks to Bjoern Zeeb and Alfonso Siciliano
respectively.

The project continues into 2026 with a similar sized investment and
scope. Key targets include completing work on sleep states (modern
standby and hibernate), adding support for graphics drivers up to
Linux 6.18, Wi-Fi 6 support, USB4 and Thunderbolt support, HDMI
improvements, UVC webcam support, and Bluetooth improvements.

A substantial testing program will also start in January, aiming to
test all the functionality together across a range of
hardware. Community testers are very welcome to help out, the
Foundation will release a blog post and send an invite to help to the
Desktop mailing list some time in January 2026.