The BSD that works for people — not just for servers.
SeaBSD is a desktop-first operating system built on the foundations of FreeBSD. The project starts from a simple observation: BSD descendants are famously reliable as servers, yet almost nobody ships them to ordinary desktop users. SeaBSD flips the priorities — the same rock-solid base, tuned for laptops, workstations and everyday computing.
FreeBSD already does the hard parts: a coherent base system, ZFS, Jails, a clean network stack and a source tree you can build end-to-end. What is missing is the user-facing layer. SeaBSD focuses on three pillars:
- Hardware that just works. Automatic detection, a maintained compatibility database and honest documentation of what works out of the box — Wi-Fi, GPUs, sound, webcams.
- Linux software, better. The FreeBSD Linux compatibility layer (the linuxolator) is powerful but rough on the edges. SeaBSD invests in testing, tuning and packaging so that Linux applications behave like first-class citizens instead of an afterthought.
- Resilient sandboxes. Later releases will make disposable environments cheap: reset a broken sandbox to a clean state in seconds via ZFS snapshots, without redoing any setup.
SeaBSD is in a pre-alpha scaffolding stage. The repository currently contains the project charter, roadmap, build framework drafts and CI. There is no installable image yet — the first milestone is described in ROADMAP.md.
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| VISION.md | Mission, principles and non-goals of the project |
| ROADMAP.md | Versioned roadmap: v0.1 "Harbor" and beyond |
| docs/linuxolator.md | Plan for improving Linux application compatibility |
| docs/linux-base.md | Decision record: the pinned Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Linux base |
| docs/hardware-support.md | Hardware detection and compatibility database plan |
| build/README.md | How to build SeaBSD images from FreeBSD sources |
| CONTRIBUTING.md | Development setup, code style and commit conventions |
Building a SeaBSD image requires a FreeBSD 14.x host (or a FreeBSD virtual machine):
git clone https://github.com/mel0k1/SeaBSD.git
cd SeaBSD
sh build/build-iso.shSee build/README.md for environment variables, disk space requirements and a description of every build stage.
Contributions are welcome at this early stage — especially:
- hardware reports from real machines (
tools/hwcheck.shon FreeBSD), - linuxolator compatibility tests and bug triage,
- documentation, translations and design work.
Read CONTRIBUTING.md to get started.
SeaBSD is distributed under the terms of the BSD 3-Clause License — the same license used by FreeBSD upstream, so code can flow between the projects without friction. See LICENSE.
SeaBSD stands on the shoulders of the FreeBSD Project and its contributors, as well as the broader BSD ecosystem. SeaBSD is an independent project and is not affiliated with The FreeBSD Foundation.