2026 is off to a great start for the Laptop Support and Usability Project. We’ve seen lots of exciting updates to major areas such as graphics and Wi-Fi drivers, as well as FreeBSD installer improvements to support the KDE Plasma desktop environment out of the box.

At this stage in the project, as we hinted earlier in the Year One Project Update, we decided to start a rigorous testing program to comprehensively validate all laptop and desktop functionality together. Since January, we have been working behind the scenes to evaluate testing requirements and implement the tooling needed to maintain these test results for the long term.

After trial runs of integration testing on our committed target systems, we are pleased to open up this effort to the FreeBSD community!

How to test

This is the process for testing FreeBSD on your laptop:

1. You run our testing tool that automatically probes your laptop hardware and logs what features work (or don’t work).
2. The tool creates a new directory containing the fully anonymized results.
3. If you wish, you can also add your own commentary to a new file named comments.md inside this directory.
4. You send the results in a Pull Request, making sure to answer the User Stories questionnaire in the template.
5. We will process the report and publish it to the compatibility matrix. No Personally Identifiable Information will ever be published.
6. Success!

To get started, run the following commands as an unprivileged user on your target testing laptop and follow the prompts along the way until you have completed the process. These steps can be done on any FreeBSD installation or live environment such as mfsBSD.

pkg install python hw-probe
git clone https://github.com/FreeBSDFoundation/freebsd-laptop-testing
cd freebsd-laptop-testing
make

The post Call for testing: introducing the Laptop Integration Testing project first appeared on FreeBSD Foundation.

FreeBSD runs on this…

[pi4]
hdmi_safe=0
armstub=armstub8-gic.bin
max_framebuffers=2
hdmi_force_hotplug=1
hdmi_group=1
hdmi_drive=2
hdmi_mode=16

Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: ugen0.4: <ASMedia ASM1156> at usbus0
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: umass0 on uhub0
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: umass0: <ASMedia ASM1156, class 0/0, rev 3.20/1.00, addr 3> on usbus0
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: umass0:  SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x0
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: umass0:0:0: Attached to scbus0
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: da0: <ASMedia ASM1156 0> Fixed Direct Access SPC-4 SCSI device
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: da0: Serial Number AAAABBBB0490
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: da0: 400.000MB/s transfers
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: da0: 3815447MB (7814037168 512 byte sectors)
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: da0: quirks=0x2<NO_6_BYTE>
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: da1 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 1
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: da1: <ASMedia ASM1156 0> Fixed Direct Access SPC-4 SCSI device
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: da1: Serial Number AAAABBBB0490
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: da1: 400.000MB/s transfers
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: da1: 3815447MB (7814037168 512 byte sectors)
Mar  6 17:04:25 generic kernel: da1: quirks=0x2<NO_6_BYTE>

root@generic:~ # zpool create -f store mirror da0 da1
root@generic:~ # zfs list
NAME    USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
store   384K  3.51T    96K  /store

root@generic:~ # service zfs enable
zfs enabled in /etc/rc.conf

root@generic:~ # pkg update
The package management tool is not yet installed on your system.
Do you want to fetch and install it now? [y/N]: y
Bootstrapping pkg from pkg+https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:aarch64/quarterly, please wait...

root@generic:~ # pkg install -y samba423
Updating FreeBSD-ports repository catalogue...
FreeBSD-ports repository is up to date.
Updating FreeBSD-ports-kmods repository catalogue...
FreeBSD-ports-kmods repository is up to date.
All repositories are up to date.
Updating database digests format: 100%
The following 82 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):

New packages to be INSTALLED:
[snip]

[global]
workgroup = FOUNDATION
server string = Pi Samba Version %v
netbios name = RaspberryPi
wins support = Yes
security = user
passdb backend = tdbsam

[store]
path = /store
valid users = freebsd
writable  = yes
browsable = yes
read only = no
guest ok = no
public = no
create mask = 0666
directory mask = 0755

root@generic:~ # testparm
Load smb config files from /usr/local/etc/smb4.conf
Loaded services file OK.
Weak crypto is allowed by GnuTLS (e.g. NTLM as a compatibility fallback)

Server role: ROLE_STANDALONE

Press enter to see a dump of your service definitions

# Global parameters
[global]
        netbios name = RASPBERRYPI
        security = USER
        server string = Pi Samba Version %v
        wins support = Yes
        workgroup = FOUNDATION
        idmap config * : backend = tdb


[store]
        create mask = 0666
        path = /store
        read only = No
        valid users = freebsd

root@generic:~ # pdbedit -a -u freebsd
new password:
retype new password:
Unix username:        freebsd
NT username:
Account Flags:        [U          ]
User SID:             S-1-5-21-2694234615-196936691-1629692636-1000
Primary Group SID:    S-1-5-21-2694234615-196936691-1629692636-513
Full Name:            FreeBSD User
Home Directory:       \\RASPBERRYPI\freebsd

root@generic:~ # service dbus enable && service avahi-daemon enable && service dbus start && service avahi-daemon start
dbus enabled in /etc/rc.conf
avahi_daemon enabled in /etc/rc.conf
Starting dbus.
Starting avahi-daemon.

root@generic:~ # service samba_server enable
samba_server enabled in /etc/rc.conf
root@generic:~ # service samba_server start
Performing sanity check on Samba configuration: OK
Starting nmbd.
Starting smbd.

root@generic:~ # service samba_server stop
Stopping smbd.
Waiting for PIDS: 6629.
Stopping nmbd.
Waiting for PIDS: 6622.
root@generic:~ # zpool export store
root@generic:~ # zpool status
no pools available

root@generic:~ # zpool list
no pools available
root@generic:~ # zpool import store
root@generic:~ # zpool list
NAME    SIZE  ALLOC   FREE  CKPOINT  EXPANDSZ   FRAG    CAP  DEDUP    HEALTH  ALTROOT
store  3.62T   596K  3.62T        -         -     0%     0%  1.00x    ONLINE  -

The post Build a NAS using FreeBSD on a Raspberry Pi first appeared on FreeBSD Foundation.

Please note that the information provided in this document is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.

The FreeBSD Foundation has launched its Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) Readiness project for 2026 to prepare the Foundation, the FreeBSD Project, and the broader FreeBSD community for the European Union’s landmark cybersecurity legislation. This post provides context for why we are investing in this work now and information about what the project will cover.

The EU is regulating software security

The EU’s CRA (REGULATION (EU) 2024/2847) represents one of the most significant pieces of software security legislation in recent history. It places commercial software into a regulatory framework for security and, if products are found to be non-compliant, it specifies fines of up to 15 million euros or 2.5 % of a company’s total worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher. 

Manufacturers are required to manage the security risks posed by their supply chain

For manufacturers the CRA mandates essential cybersecurity requirements with which they must comply during the design, development and production of their products. 

These requirements fall into two main categories, each of which has stringent enforcement:

1. Products must be secure by default. 

Manufacturers must actively manage the cybersecurity risk across the full lifecycle of their products. They must document how they are doing this (including providing an SBOM) and make it available to the market surveillance authorities. They must exercise due diligence in their use of 3rd-party components such as open source projects. They must provide a declaration of conformity with the CRA on the basis of having carried out an accepted conformity assessment procedure.

2. Vulnerabilities must be rapidly reported.

Once the product is on the market, manufacturers must act quickly when actively exploited vulnerabilities are discovered. Notifications must be reported on the CRA Single Reporting Platform with deadlines as follows: 24 hours for an early warning notification, and 72 hours for the main notification. Further reporting deadlines also apply within a 14-28 day window.

There is a lot more detail provided in the CRA itself, but these headlines are enough to give a clue to the sorts of activities that manufacturers will soon start doing to meet the CRA requirements.

The CRA is already law, with staged compliance deadlines

The CRA entered into force on 10 December 2024. Its essential cybersecurity requirements (including ‘secure by default’ principles) will start applying from 11 December 2027. Products placed on the market before 11 December 2027 are only subject to these requirements if they undergo substantial modification after that date. 

Reporting obligations come into force on 11 September 2026. Reporting obligations apply to all products with digital elements available in the EU market, including those already on the market before 11 December 2027.

Open source projects have limited CRA responsibilities, but face both opportunities and risks

Open source projects have limited responsibilities

Many in the open source community have been watching this coming down the tracks. The first iteration of the CRA did not mention open source at all. Thanks to feedback from many open source contributors, the CRA now contains robust carve-outs of responsibility for open source projects. 

Happily, individuals who contribute to free and open source projects are exempted from all legal responsibilities, even if they are paid to contribute on a project. 

Organizations that are classified as ‘open source stewards’ have limited responsibilities under the CRA and cannot be fined. The FreeBSD Foundation likely falls under this classification. Individuals cannot be stewards.

The risks to an open source project

Does this mean an open source project has nothing to worry about? For open source projects which are used in downstream commercial software products there are some areas where things might get rough once manufacturers start getting serious about CRA compliance.

One example is a “due diligence denial of service attack”. What happens when many manufacturers aim to carry out a due diligence process on components in their SBOM? A project with a large downstream user base might receive a deluge of requests for information. 

Or, how about when an exploited vulnerability is discovered in your open source project? A manufacturer would have to report it within 24h and your project might receive requests for information, and patch submissions (or demands for fixes!) that come with a lot of pressure attached. Does your project have the processes and staffing for this?

Another, more insidious, possibility is that any open source project that is not prepared for the CRA may simply get swapped out or passed over by manufacturers who see a more-compliant option. This could contribute to putting a project on a downward trajectory.  If you are thinking “my project is too hard to swap out”, consider this –  an unprepared project that cannot be easily swapped out might find that the downstream start making SBOMs just for their fork (this could create all sorts of complexities and upstream queries). 

The opportunities for open source projects

It is not all doom and gloom though. The CRA has the potential to change the power dynamics of the open source landscape. Projects that are proactive in preparing for the CRA will be better positioned to forge new relationships with their downstream users. 

When manufacturers need SBOMs, documentation on security processes, and swift vulnerability management responses to avoid eye-watering fines, they may be more incentivized  to support their upstream open source projects. 

Projects could secure funding agreements, gain dedicated security staffing support, or establish formal partnerships with manufacturers.

Open source projects all over the world are working together to figure this out. After all, it’s what we do. 

The FreeBSD Foundation is committed to helping FreeBSD navigate this important change successfully.

The FreeBSD Foundation’s CRA Readiness project

For FreeBSD, getting prepared now means we can take a proactive approach to CRA readiness and leverage as much benefit as possible while reducing potential harms. 

The high-level project goals are: make sure the Foundation fulfills its legal obligations as an open source steward, protect the Project from disruption as manufacturers work to meet CRA requirements, and ensure that our contributors understand they are not personally exposed to legal liability under this legislation.

What we are working on

The project is organized into six workstreams running through 2026:

Security and vulnerability handling 
This is the core of the effort. Foundation staff will work closely with FreeBSD’s Core team, Security team, and Ports Security team, and downstream vendors to develop a shared understanding of CRA responsibilities and to examine how we collectively respond to CRA-related scenarios. This is a sustained, 12-month effort that takes a holistic view of FreeBSD’s security posture, and will result in updated policies, public positions, and documentation where needed.

SBOM toolchain 
This addresses one of the CRA’s most concrete requirements: Software Bills of Materials. Rather than leaving manufacturers to independently generate their own (potentially inaccurate) SBOMs for FreeBSD-based products, we are building a single, authoritative, open-source SBOM toolchain. This work builds on development started in 2025 under our Infrastructure Modernization project. Over the next four months, we will be adding SBOM information files, identifying and filling licensing gaps, and collaborating with upstream projects to improve SBOM metadata. A shared, accurate SBOM solution is better for everyone.

Public documentation 
This will give manufacturers, maintainers, and contributors clear, FreeBSD-specific information about CRA requirements, including emerging processes and key contacts. The content will evolve as our understanding deepens across the other workstreams.

Community legislative engagement 
This will open up a simple communication channel (most likely a mailing list) so that the FreeBSD community can participate in EU policy development. Bodies like CEN, CENELEC, and ETSI regularly seek input from the open source world, and we want to make sure FreeBSD voices are part of that conversation.

A public-facing project repository 
This will serve as the running record of everything we do. We are committed to transparency: detailed updates, outputs, and decision-making will all be documented here as the project progresses.

Communications 
We will keep the broader community informed through blogs, social media, and other channels as we hit key milestones.

A note on scope
The CRA is new legislation, and real-world guidance on implementation continues to evolve. We have designed this project to adapt as our understanding develops, and though the workstreams above reflect our best current thinking, you should expect the details to shift over time. We will keep you informed as they do.

Learn more

• CRA full text https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/2847/oj
• CRA summary https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/cra-summary#ecl-inpage-chapter-viii 
• FreeBSD Foundation’s CRA Readiness project repo https://github.com/FreeBSDFoundation/all-projects/tree/main/Cyber%20Resilience%20Act%20Readiness 
• 3rd-party guide to how CRA affects open source maintainers https://cra.orcwg.org/faq/maintainers/ 

The post Getting ready for the Cyber Resilience Act first appeared on FreeBSD Foundation.

Written as part of the FreeBSD Project’s 4th Quarter 2025 Status Report, check out the highlights of what we did to help FreeBSD last quarter:

The post FreeBSD Foundation Q4 2025 Status Update first appeared on FreeBSD Foundation.

We are pleased to announce the October/November/December 2025 issue of the FreeBSD Journal, focused on FreeBSD 15.0, is now available. This online publication provides the FreeBSD community with valuable insights and technical knowledge each quarter.

This quarter’s issue highlights FreeBSD 15.0, featuring articles that explore storage and sound subsystems, system security, developer tooling, and community initiatives. Inside, you’ll find coverage on FreeBSD 15.0 fixes and features, Universal Flash Storage, credential transitions with mdo(1) and mac_do(4), FreeBSD’s participation in Google Summer of Code 2025, and building U-Boot. The issue also includes community staples such as We Get Letters, the 2026 Events Calendar, and a Letter from the Foundation.

Thank you to all the contributors who made this issue possible. The FreeBSD Journal highlights the work and expertise of the FreeBSD community. As always, it is freely available in both HTML and PDF formats.

Read the Q4 2025 Issue Here:
https://freebsdfoundation.org/our-work/journal/browser-based-edition/freebsd-15-0/

Please take a moment to read this issue, share it with your colleagues, and help spread the word that the FreeBSD Journal is a great way to stay up to date on the FreeBSD community.

The post The Q4 2025 Issue of the FreeBSD Journal is Now Available! first appeared on FreeBSD Foundation.

Did you know that your support for the FreeBSD Foundation directly improves the FreeBSD you use every day?

FreeBSD doesn’t just happen. It’s built, tested, maintained, secured, and improved by a global community. Your donation helps make that possible in ways that directly benefit you, including:

• A stronger, more reliable FreeBSD. More than half of the Foundation’s budget goes directly into software development projects, such as advancing laptop and desktop usability and strengthening security.
• Smoother updates and releases you can count on. Your support keeps FreeBSD’s build, testing, and CI infrastructure running, ensuring stable upgrades and dependable releases.
• A community that strengthens the system you rely on. Your donation helps grow contributor participation, expand education and events, and keep the ecosystem healthy for the long term.

When FreeBSD grows stronger, the systems and projects you build on top of it do too. FreeBSD is powered by its community and supported by you.

Please consider donating today! We can’t do it without you. 

Sincerely, 
Deb Goodkin
Executive Director
FreeBSD Foundation

The post Powering the Future of FreeBSD first appeared on FreeBSD Foundation.

As we look back on 2025, it is clear that this has been a year of meaningful progress for the FreeBSD Project and the FreeBSD Foundation. We advanced key development initiatives, strengthened core infrastructure, improved accessibility, and continued supporting enterprise-scale use. 

This work was made possible through the generosity of our donors and the dedication of contributors, partners, and staff. With 62% of our annual budget invested directly in software development, the Foundation remained focused on delivering sustainable, high-impact improvements across the ecosystem. The sections below highlight the technical achievements that shaped 2025.

The post 2025: Software Development and Infrastructure Support. first appeared on FreeBSD Foundation.

In 2024 The Sovereign Tech Agency commissioned an ambitious body of work to strengthen and modernize the infrastructure that FreeBSD contributors depend on. 

The program of work totaling €686,400 was managed by the FreeBSD Foundation and has run from August 2024 to December 2025. 

The main goals of the program were to accelerate planned work to deliver zero trust builds, SBOM and security tooling, and improve developer experience.

As the project nears completion, some of the key work delivered is:

Zero Trust Builds

FreeBSD now builds reproducibly and without root privilege.  

The FreeBSD Foundation has completed work enabling FreeBSD builds without requiring root privileges. All release artifacts (ISO images, USB memstick images, VM images, and cloud disk images) can now be created without elevated access, reducing security risks from device file creation, ownership changes, and filesystem mounting during builds.

Alongside no-root support, FreeBSD introduced reproducible builds ensuring identical sources produce identical binaries. This involved normalizing timestamps, stabilizing file ordering, and creating consistent build environments. These improvements strengthen supply chain integrity, enable unprivileged container-based CI systems, and allow contributors to build complete releases locally, making FreeBSD management faster, more secure, and transparent.

CI/CD Automation

A package of changes to CI tooling will improve the development workflow by enabling developers to test code changes before merging and extending automated testing to the Ports tree. This will make debugging easier by providing better test metadata, automated code analysis, and notifications to code owners when issues arise.

Tooling will soon* be available which:

• Extends CI to the Ports tree
• Gives developers the ability to run CI (locally or in the cloud) on their proposed source code changes before they are merged into main. 
• Collects test environment metadata to help with reproducing bugs.
• Supports running CI in 3rd party services.
• Provides automated code analysis as part of CI.
• Notifies code owners when a test fails and provides details about related code changes.

Also, part of the project:

• Automated updates to keep CI tooling up-to-date.
• A CI threat model to support future security planning.

* This work has been sitting behind 15.0 release and will take a little longer to deliver.

Reduce Technical Debt

The Foundation worked with the Source Manager team to specify and create an analytics dashboard to gather insights from across the different tools containing information about bugs and technical debt. This was combined with a focus in the community on “bugbusting” sessions, some Bugzilla upgrades, and related new tooling to apply patches automatically. The changes have meant that there has been a sustained improvement in bug management. Over the last year the rate of closing bugs has been higher than the rate of bugs being raised.

Security Controls

Changes have been made to support FreeBSD’s adoption of the emerging OSV (Open Source Vulnerability) format for its vulnerability data.  This standardization makes it easier for downstream users to access and process security information using existing ecosystem tools, while also simplifying imports of vulnerability data from FreeBSD’s third-party components.

An OSV database for FreeBSD has been created, and OSV parsing capability has been added to pkg. Conversion tools are also available to transform existing VuXML data to OSV, with CI to automatically validate the output. pkg audit can also now handle OSV data. 

FreeBSD was also added to the upstream OSV schema to allow 3rd-party tooling to be updated to correctly handle FreeBSD OSV data.

SBOM Improvements

Foundational tooling to generate SBOMs for FreeBSD has been created by consolidating scattered provenance data into unified reports. The Ports tree implementation is mature and ready for review, while Base system SBOM generation remains in technical preview due to its complex build system. A follow-on project in early 2026 will build on this groundwork to deliver production-ready SBOM capabilities across the entire FreeBSD stack.

The post Infrastructure Modernization – commissioned by the Sovereign Tech Agency first appeared on FreeBSD Foundation.

If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to try FreeBSD on a laptop, take note – 2025 has brought transformative changes. The Foundation’s ambitious Laptop Support & Usability Project is systematically addressing the gaps that have held FreeBSD back on modern laptop hardware. 

The project started in 2024 Q4 and covers areas including Wi-Fi, graphics, audio, installer, and sleep states. 2025 has been its first full year, and with a financial commitment of over $750k to date there has been substantial progress.

Wi-Fi

In 2025 we added support for W-iFi 4 and 5 on key hardware and made a start on Wi-Fi 6. Wi-Fi 4 and 5 drivers for Intel and Realtek are available in 15.0, with support for additional Realtek and Mediatek drivers in progress. Thanks to Bjoern Zeeb and Tom Jones for their work on this.

Graphics

Graphics drivers have been upgraded to Linux 6.9, which is available in 15.0 (note: to use this driver you need to adopt the drm-latest-kmod port as it’s a non-LTS version). Linux 6.10 is in progress, and this is the minimum version required for the latest Framework laptop (16″ AMD Ryzen AI 300 series). Thanks to Jean-Sébastien Pédron for all the hard work.

Audio

Notable updates to the audio experience are also available in 15.0. Two new utilities; sndctl(8) and mididump(1), several bug fixes and improvements, wider laptop support, as well as an initial attempt to address automatic sound redirection for HDA sound cards. Our thanks go out to Christos Margiolis for his work on this.

Installer

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.

Sleep states

Important work is underway on enabling modern standby (S0i3) which should be available in 15.1, and hibernate (S4) which may be available in 15.2. Additional related areas of functionality (for example, managing the transition from modern standby to hibernate, disk encryption on hibernate, and sleep states for VMs) will be addressed as part of the S4 work. Thanks to Aymeric Wibo, Tom Jones, En-Wei Wu, Konstantin Belousov, and Olivier Certner for their work on sleep states.

2026 plans

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.

A Community Effort

This year reinforced to us that meaningful progress only happens when communities, contributors, and organizations share responsibility for sustaining the work that supports us all.

Thank you to all the developers, volunteers, testers, donors, and advocates who contributed to this project. Your support is helping build a more modern, usable, and inclusive FreeBSD ecosystem.

Learn more about the Foundation’s Laptop Project at https://github.com/FreeBSDFoundation/proj-laptop 

Support This Work

Continued progress on laptop support, usability, and hardware enablement is made possible through community donations.

You can support ongoing improvements here:
Donate to FreeBSD Foundation | FreeBSD Foundation

– Contributed by Alice Sowerby

The post FreeBSD Closes the Laptop Gap: Year One Project Update first appeared on FreeBSD Foundation.

The post 2025: A Year of Advocacy, Community, and Growth first appeared on FreeBSD Foundation.