One of the things lacking from the FreeBSD installation routine is the easy installation of a full desktop experience, from X11 all the way up to a login manager, desktop environment, and its applications. It seems this might finally change for FreeBSD 15.0, as the FreeBSD Foundation’s Laptop Support and Usability Improvements project is working on adding support for this to bsdinstall, the FreeBSD installer.
Based on a goal set out in this GitHub issue, the way this will work is that through a set of dialogs (which you can check out on GitLab) in the FreeBSD installer, the user can select to install KDE, which will then guide the user through installing the correct graphics driver and adding users to the video group. Once the installation is finished, the computer will reboot and load directly into SDDM, allowing you to log into the installed KDE Plasma desktop environment.
For FreeBSD 15.0, our goal is to extend the FreeBSD installer to offer a minimal KDE-based desktop as an install option. The initial concept is a low-interaction installation process that, upon completion, brings the user directly to a KDE graphical login screen.
↫ FreeBSD Foundation Laptop Update – June 2025
Future plans for desktop users in the FreeBSD installers are more elaborate, and will include additional desktop environments to choose from, the ability to install sets of desktop applications during FreeBSD’s installation, and yes, even opting for Wayland instead of X11, because FreeBSD developers know which way the wind is blowing.
This is excellent news, and will make installing a FreeBSD-based desktop a lot easier for a ton of people. Work isn’t fully completed just yet, but even if the developers miss their FreeBSD 15.0 target, it’ll just move on to one of the follow-up releases.
Excellent news for helping FreeBSD’s desktop adoption.
I’m already happy and needs taken care of w/Linux, but have messed around with FreeBSD numerous times and was always frustrated by all the manual extra steps to get a DE/WM going.
Excellent news. And I’m glad that KDE is the default choice. Maybe Xfce can be added later as another choice for those who prefer a more simplistic desktop.
Optionally installing to a full featured desktop will be huge for FreeBSD. Along with all the laptop focus: WiFi, power management, USB, HDMI, suspend/resume, etc, FreeBSD could become a real option for laptop users. What would really push FreeBSD would be if it became more popular with developers.
Along with the emerging OCI support, I could see giving FreeBSD a go as a daily desktop.
I am very curious if the installed KDE system on FreeBSD system will use Xorg or Wayland by default. I could not find that anywhere.
Incidentally, one of the things I like the most about running FreeBSD is, by installing from scratch, you get a lot of control.
I love being able to load webcam drivers only if I start an application that requires a webcam. I also enjoy the little scripts that do things like “hey, if I connect my monitor’s USB hub, then I am docked, so change power settings and enable USB ports”. Otherwise, I keep usb devices cut off. I also do not use my trackpad on freebsd, only the trackpoint, so the driver is also not loaded.
Nothing ever plays through the laptop speakers… if connected to the monitor, then it uses the monitor speakers, otherwise the headphone jack is always on. On my W530, the battery life is 30% longer on FreeBSD than Windows.
I don’t use bluetooth, so it’s not here either. It is not disabled – support is simply not part of my setup, but it can be without too much pain.
It’s super nice and if someone ever manages to expose this kind of power to users, it would be great!
I enjoy KDE, but all the animations annoy me, and I wish I could tone down the eye-candy a bit more than the GUI offers. I also prefer to control the network interfaces directly because not always the GUI exposes all the possibilities of the driver.
So for me pure gold would be to give KDE a FreeBSD spice and show people what kind of thing you can do when your computer works for you and when you have endless possibilities to create custom workflows rather than what the developer of certain desktop environment had in mind.
I migrated from Linux to FreeBSD years ago (Windows is still here to use my photo scanner and play Flight Simulator) and it was totally worth the learning curve. Check vermaden’s work – he did an extensive performance assessment of desktop environments, different terminal emulators, photo viewers and, once you add 1% faster here, 3% faster there, you end up with the most responsive computer you ever owned. Almost everything just happens instantly.
@Shiunbird
Fully agree. I would not want FreeBSD to lose what makes it great.
I also think it would help if some people could get a more “batteries included” experience of what FreeBSD can do so that they see it in a different light. And laptop support is just a pragmatic barrier to adoption for many users.
I mostly use Niri these days myself but Plasma 6 is a pretty good experience.