FreeBSD Foundation executive director tries daily driving FreeBSD on laptop | Hacker News Reader

FreeBSD Foundation executive director tries daily driving FreeBSD on laptop

phoronix.com

94 pointsBender72 comments

I'll never understand why people think this looks human:

  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

Gee, why not let the agent try FreeBSD for you and do the posting directly

> This time, I didn't just install FreeBSD

Well, rms has never installed Linux so that's a step forward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umQL37AC_YM

Linux isn't his thing. But he also didn't install GNU.

It's a funny video but his stance is quite principled, as he refuses to use any non-free software even if it's horribly inconvenient. Which is the exact opposite of what we have here.

That's because if you trade freedom for convenience, you'll end up having neither.

Because those type of people are actually some type of narcissist powerpoint bots. Only interested in their "journey" and putting that next to a picture (of herself probably) climbing a mountain.

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...

> Because those type of people are actually some type of narcissist powerpoint bots

We call these senior management.

As a long time FreeBSD user, the Foundation has really failed to impress me in recent years. I lost faith in them back in 2018 during the "code of conduct" fiasco, when they wasted Foundation funds on a consultant for a code of conduct that nobody really asked for. Haven't donated since -- instead I redirected my donations to the OpenBSD project, which while less practical in many scenarios, is a technically superior product in my eyes.

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."

According to [0] (I couldn't verify it to be clear)

> 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...

> FreeBSD Foundation's Executive Director has been trying to daily drive FreeBSD on laptops

This sounds like a joke. Imagine if Bill gates said "he's going to try and daily drive Windows", or if Steve Jobs said "he's going to try and daily drive an iPhone".

It seems crazy to me that a foundation behind an OS has executives who don't even use that OS.

Bill Gates: not perfectly ‘daily drives Windows’, but still:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41421018

Oh my god this lady should be running a pet shop. She's had this role since 2005 and is only now dogfooding the software for 10 minutes a day? Stunning and brave.

Imagine Linus Torvalds or Theo from OpenBSD using Windows out of convenience. Unthinkable.

It's possible she used it on a server. But yeah...

I knew people running FreeBSD on the desktop back in 2003. If it was good enough for them then... Could they not scrounge up enough cash for a Thinkpad in the last 20 years?

I tried FreeBSD on tower pc in 2003, it's not that it was completely unusable it but compared to Linux it was like night and day. Now it's still not perfect, more like midnight and evening.

I used FreeBSD on a laptop 2008-2010 and it was usable, other than needing a USB Wifi adapter. Definitely not as usable as Linux, but I was able to do 18 credit hours per semester. Quite a lot more than 10 minutes a day.

Notably, you and I aren't FreeBSD Foundation Executive Directors.

I ran it on my desktop at that time and only had to switch to Linux because FreeBSD 5.0 wasn't compatible with my machine anymore.

this. I have been running FreeBSD for over a decade, but not on my laptop.

Really setting the bar low there aintcha? If Torvald's Linux use is the benchmark then we're doomed. Aren't there ample quotes from him by now where he basically says he only cares about coding and doesn't have strong opinions about GUIs? Is Theo any better in that aspect?

IIRC, he cares about not breaking userspace, because he is runing the bleeding edge in his main computer and any bacward incompatible change breaks linusspace.

CEO of Take-Two Interactive (Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption 2, Borderlands, NBA2K) doesn't play any games.

https://fortune.com/2026/05/06/ceo-take-two-interactive-soft...

He looks like he plays a lot of golf

The CEOs of big US tech companies don't let their kids use screens (or curate it to a high degree).

i believe you. link me

There was a bit of a controversy a few years ago when people realized that the head of the Linux Foundation was using Mac OS to give a presentation at a conference (especially ironic considering the presentation was about using Linux on the desktop). If the FreeBSD Foundation is similar to the Linux Foundation (which seems to be the case from looking at their site), it's mainly intended as a vehicle so large companies can fund aspects of the system they want developed rather than an ideologically driven organization like the FSF. From that perspective, an executive actually trying to run FreeBSD is a nice thing to see. It's been a running joke for years that when you look at a FreeBSD conference you'll see all the developers running it in a VM on their MacBooks, so if they're treating bare metal as more of a priority I think it's a positive development.

If only the Linux Foundation was primarily funding development of Linux, it's hard to describe what it is they are doing exactly, but it's a bit like a social club for Middle Managers and other insignificant people, building ecosystems^TM, connections and synergies^TM, and of course the Linux brand. Starting initiatives and such.

Gaze upon a premier Linux Foundation project:

https://www.canton.network/global-synchronizer

Thanks for pointing that out, I had no idea the Linux foundation was in the blockchain grift. Case studies like this one is such a bad look: https://www.lfdecentralizedtrust.org/case-studies/establishi...

Like, seriously, try to read this page content and understand what it is about.

Ten minutes a day is a daily driver? Short commute!

I am wondering if she only does 10 minutes of work a day :)

how is this not the most embarrassing thing ever?

Ironically, drm-612-kmod has been pushed to ports a couple days ago (not quarterly yet) so you can now start using FreeBSD with really recent GPUs now from ... let's see ... 2024.

This still makes it like the 3rd operating system overall when it comes to hardware support.

That’s plenty good, it isn’t like anyone has the money to buy a new GPU

With ~zero unix experience (I was moving from BeOS), I ran FreeBSD full time as a chemistry grad student from 2003-2009, on a Dell XPS, and mostly had no problems. What's changed?

(I'm interested in leaving linux and going to FreeBSD)

Well the problem is not a lot. It's pretty much like being in 2009 still. Which is fine if you didn't adopt a huge amount of technology changes since.

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.

> (I was moving from BeOS)

homie is saying a lot about themselves and less about FreeBSD

Does anyone know about power consumption? That's where Linux shines for laptops (probably nowadays better than Windows).

(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.)

FreeBSD does not have a desktop installer yet.. the powerpoint alludes to that being a coming feature though.. I think people here should chill out about her not using FreeBSD as the daily driver.. I use FreeBSD daily in my work, but no, I don't on desktop...

Today I learned the FreeBSD Foundation executive does not daily drive FreeBSD on laptop. (Without even opening the article.) This alone looks exceptionally weird for me.

> she tried FreeBSD as a daily driver for at least 10 minutes a day.

> at least 10 minutes a day.

> 10 minutes a day.

this is a story? and she can only handle dogfooding her product in sub 1 hour intervals?

https://omfreebdy.dba.wtf idk freebsd can be super nice on a laptop

I understand the rants, but my main complain about freebsd today for me is the poor wifi firmware support (compared to Linux)

Can Linux get the Mac level of close the shell and the battery doesn’t deplete on a laptop if you order a framework?

yes

I am ashamed to say that my mind could not understand these 'mac behaviors'. in my mind, closing the shell does not mean 'shut down the machine (or make it standby). maybe i have a job running. maybe i am ssh'ed into it. likewise, when it is opened up, why does it un-standby or turn on?

very confusing that the computer thinks it knows what i want; when i can push the power button to turn it on, or /sbin/shutdown -h now when i want it off.

This is horrifying on so many levels even if you don't already know how the story ends.

The writing is so on the nose it makes me wonder if Michael is mocking her.

I mean I am happy if they kept FreeBSD to be Server focused. I have been using a Mac / Windows and deploying on Linux and FreeBSD, i don't see why both the consumer and the server / enterprise has to have the same OS stack all the time.

I don't see why the operating systems have to be different.

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?

on a server a GUI is optional. on a desktop/laptop a GUI is mandatory. supporting a GUI is more work. so if you are server focused, then why bother? making that effort only makes sense when you actually do want to also support desktops. and of course you can use a desktop device as a server. all my home servers so far have been desktop devices. but they never had a GUI because i had no use for it.

Agree. Other than drivers, which Server OS will have less to deal with. I also wanted other point out GUI is the majority of the work and polish on consumer OS. Far more than what ever kernel, driver, filesystem sitting behind it. And that is ignoring the apps.

Consumer OS is basically totally different beast, it is not that I don't want FreeBSD to go down that path. But given the limited amount of resources I would much rather they focus on doing something great.

What a joke. When the Executive Director of your Foundation doesn't even use your product its a red flag.

… what a ludicrous take.

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.

Would you ridicule Eddy Cue and Jeff Robin (heads of iCloud, kinda) for not running iCloud on macOS?

Would you not?

What is more of a joke is the fact that I remember a time when there were multiple computer companies that designed hardware and software (OS) and actually sold those items to the public 1980s early-late 1990’s all those companies are gone IBM (is but a shadow of its former self), Sun, Digital, Atari, Commodore Amiga, Next, Acorn, and SGI etc… At the time Next and SGI were completely unaffordable dreams when I was young.

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.

whats more embarassing is the shit tier presentation slop. "This time I didnt just install FreeBSD. I create a system for learning and success".

Anyone who wrote this has no business with FreeBSD or open source.

Tried “a daily driver for at least 10 minutes a day”.

lol. That’s not the definition of a daily driver. Thats something I really don’t want to do, like pushups.

As soon as I saw the title I immediately knew what the comment section would look like (and rightfully so).

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