NomadBSD 1.4 Working On An Improved Installer, Better Driver Detection

For those that have been trying to find a desktop-friendly BSD operating system that works smoothly out of the box but haven't yet found the perfect match, NomadBSD 1.4-RC1 is now available for improving this desktop-minded FreeBSD-derived open-source operating system.

NomadBSD 1.4 is working towards a number of improvements for bettering the initial out-of-the-box desktop experience. Besides shifting to FreeBSD 12.2-p2 as its base, NomadBSD 1.4 has been working on installer improvements particularly around UEFI integration, better automatic graphics driver detection has been worked out, and touchpad support is also better off compared to prior releases.

NomadBSD 1.4-RC1 also introduces other desktop-minded enhancements like a easy GUI utility for setting up the Linux builds of the Google Chrome and Brave web browsers (complete with working Netflix / Amazon Prime Video / Spotify support), easier switching of desktop window managers / desktop environments, and a variety of other minor improvements.

While the Linux x86 32-bit support has been degrading for a while, it's also getting that way too in the BSD world. With the drm-legacy-kmod code now considered obsolete by FreeBSD, there is no longer any i386 support for accelerated graphics on NomadBSD moving forard for Intel and AMD graphics hardware.

More details on the NomadBSD 1.4 release candidate for testing can be found via NomadBSD.org.