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pgj
freebsd-wifibox
Shell2022–2026
pgj / freebsd-wifibox

freebsd-wifibox

wifibox: Use Linux to drive your wireless card on FreeBSD

Systems & Infrastructure
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
11Distinct people
11Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
261GitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

wifibox: Use Linux to drive your wireless card on FreeBSD

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

I daily drive FreeBSD on my desktop with KDE. It is not as smooth as Linux and requires a little more tinkering compared to Linux. But I love it! The killer features for me: -…

clan used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year11 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2022-01-24 14:24:46 UTC to 2026-04-09 17:38:26 UTC.

012342022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 1 submissions, 3 comments20222023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 1 submissions, 2 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments20242025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC413
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC312
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

11 sources
sunshine-o·Nov 12, 2025
I have been daily driving FreeBSD for a while now (as a newcomer, coming from Linux) and surprisingly the experience for me was different from what you usually hear. Pros: - It is actually in a way easier than Linux. The installation is less complex and more reliable than a Fedora if you are not afraid of the TUI. More important it will soon include a desktop installation script. - All the software you will ever need is in pkg or ports unless you are a degen - You will pick up jails for container use cases in 10 minutes and will never want to go back - VM with vm-bhyve is simpler than libvirt and no XML to deal with. - Same with networking, you will pick it up quickly and no more confusion between NetworkManager, systemd-networkd, ifup, etc. - The linux-compat feature will get you very far and there are a lot of Linux apps packaged alread
Read the rest
y - Hardware support is ok if you check first on https://bsd-hardware.info/ - The wifi thing is no problem with https://github.com/pgj/freebsd-wifibox Cons: - You won't be able to mount/read your LUKS drives from your Linux era. - Sometime very critical packages like Chromium disappear because they won't build (for example no chromium in pkg on the current FreeBSD 15 BETA) - Bhyve do not support SPICE so you are stuck with the perf of VNC. - Bhyve do not have vsock so no blazing fast waypipe - You basically loose a lot of security feature of web browsers, most of the sandboxing of Firefox and Chrome. This is really bad. - I haven't really dived into it but it seems there is no Bluetooth LE - It is fast but doesn't feel as fast as an Alpine If you are thinking about it and this is ok for you, I would say go for it.
In A brief look at FreeBSD
clan·Nov 12, 2025Recommendation phrase
I daily drive FreeBSD on my desktop with KDE. It is not as smooth as Linux and requires a little more tinkering compared to Linux. But I love it! The killer features for me: - The pf firewall. Rules you actually understand! - Jails! When you cannot have Zones this will do. - Native ZFS. Stable, mature, safe and with all the features you can dream of. - Linuxulator. Binary compatibility with Linux if need be. Can be put in jail as well. - pkg/ports. I really like it but I might have been indoctrinated. - Networking stack. Good. Stable. Makes sense to me. For a nice graphical UI Linux is more smooth but if you are willing to tinker it can work. As Linux gets all the attention you will see stuff such as Chromium lag behind. I can understand that can scare people off. But FreeBSD feels like a comfortable old glove for me. I will suffer the mi
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nor holes. My beard has grayed and my hair line is non-existant. If waiting for a laptop I would perhaps wait for FreeBSD 15 for much needed improvements in WIFI. If you want fast WIFI today you need weird hacks routing through a Linux VM[1]. It works rather well but it is honestly a bit clunky. [1] https://github.com/pgj/freebsd-wifibox
In A brief look at FreeBSD
Klonoar·Mar 31, 2025
> Wifi not being available isn't the fault of FreeBSD. No. Just because it's available doesn't mean it's good. Until FreeBSD supports modern Wifi (4/5, i.e 802.11n/ac) then you're just ticking the box to say you've got it, but Linux actually supports these modern network setups and FreeBSD does not. There is no debating this at this point in time. And to be clear, I'm referencing wifibox (https://github.com/pgj/freebsd-wifibox) which has been written about extensively and exists to work around FreeBSDs well known poor wifi support. > So stop throwing that this is FreeBSDs fault Nope, it's on FreeBSD if they want it. They appear to have finally prioritized it but it's not there yet. https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/january-2025-laptop-suppo...
In Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

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