Dell hardware for FreeBSD

[Torfinn Ingolfsen]

On Sat, 09 Dec 2017 21:29:43 -0600
Mark Schofield <markscho65 at icloud.com> wrote:

> Hi All
> 
> I am looking to buy a new Dell laptop and wanted to put FreeBSD on it, but was unsure which one is supported. I am looking at a non touchscreen version that to put on it with 8gb ram. Link below
> 
> http://pilot.search.dell.com/Linux
> 
> 
> Will FreeBSD install on one of these.

FreeBSD will install. But - Intel Graphics for newer chipsets (like those used with 7th generation Intel Core cpus) will very likely not work out of the box. Also, some of the hardware inside the laptop might be unsupported (no FreeBSD driver), for example the wireless (there has been lots of progress here lately, with both iwn and iwm drivers, so it might work).

There have been reports that people have got Intel Graphics working with the drm-next-kmod[1] port, but I haven't tried this, so YMMV.

In general, buying a new laptop to use a FreeBSD desktop machine today is difficult, both because the vendors / shops seldoms lists all technical specifications - you have to do all research yourself, and because
many "Linux-supported" products from well known vendors like Dell and others use proprietary drivers in Linux to be able to claim Linux support.

References:
1) https://www.freshports.org/graphics/drm-next-kmod/
-- 
Torfinn Ingolfsen <torfinn.ingolfsen at getmail.no>