Why? Nothing wrong with running your network interface in a VM. There are reasons for doing so even if drivers aren't an issue. Qubes OS does this, for instance, for security reasons.
Windows also does. Almost everything is a VM in windows these days.
It's just how things work these days. If you'd say "I run my VPN client in a docker container" it would raise a lot less eyebrows. Yet it's not very different, really.
Though conceptually I'd frown at having to run Linux. I'd prefer upgrading the hardware to a supported chip.
Why not? FreeBSD has never been intended as a batteries included, everything "just works" out of the box OS. It's meant to have a bare minimum install and let the user choose how things are set up. You can disagree with that philosophy, but that's not an indictment of FreeBSD. Just go use something that aligns better with your preferences.
Why? Nothing wrong with running your network interface in a VM. There are reasons for doing so even if drivers aren't an issue. Qubes OS does this, for instance, for security reasons.
Windows also does. Almost everything is a VM in windows these days.
It's just how things work these days. If you'd say "I run my VPN client in a docker container" it would raise a lot less eyebrows. Yet it's not very different, really.
Though conceptually I'd frown at having to run Linux. I'd prefer upgrading the hardware to a supported chip.
Windows isn't running entire fucking separate kernel to run wifi driver, the fuck you're talking about
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no matter how it's implemented, it must not be a user-requiring (or even user-facing) task
Why not? FreeBSD has never been intended as a batteries included, everything "just works" out of the box OS. It's meant to have a bare minimum install and let the user choose how things are set up. You can disagree with that philosophy, but that's not an indictment of FreeBSD. Just go use something that aligns better with your preferences.
Not really weird when some firmware are close to being full blown OS. An alpine VM can be run with 64 MB which is lower than a lot of software.
I've used cellular modems which run Linux or ThreadX internally.
Weren't there iPhones that had wifi chips that ran Linux?
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