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Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

freebsdfoundation.github.io

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Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#21

Post by asveikau »

stackghost wrote: post #16
olivierestsage wrote: post #12

It's crazy how much negativity there is in comment threads like this. I would get it if FreeBSD was a product you paid for, or someone was evangelizing about how you're missing out if you don't get the FreeBSD laptop experience, or something. As someone who liked FreeBSD in the past and curious to check it out again, I'm glad to have this handy list.

>It's crazy how much negativity there is in comment threads like this I think it's because this chart continues a trend I've noticed with BSD zealots. Namely, there's some sort of reality distortion effect at play. Consider that there are obvious bullshit scores on TFA, like giving a laptop 9/10 when the fucking wifi doesn't work. In reality, this should be 5/10 or arguably 0/10. After all, what use is a laptop witho…

> Mostly I'm just tired of people claiming BSD is this amazing new thing

I don't think I've heard anybody claim BSD is new.

> Netflix, and other FAANGs, except those corps don't contribute enough back because of the license

I believe Netflix has upstreamed a lot to FreeBSD. They don't do it because the license compels them, they do it because upstreaming your changes makes maintenance easier.

> If my laptop's wifi didn't work I wouldn't just buy a usb-ethernet adapter and never bring it anywhere

I'm going to guess with this rant that you weren't using Linux in the olden days, because that's what it was like. The workaround isn't using wired ethernet by the way..you can get a USB wifi adapter or you can buy an m.2 wifi card. On on one of my machines I got a cheap m.2 Intel ax200 (just checked, about $15 on eBay) because it runs faster on FreeBSD than the one that shipped with my laptop.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#22

Post by olivierestsage »

stackghost wrote: post #16
olivierestsage wrote: post #12

It's crazy how much negativity there is in comment threads like this. I would get it if FreeBSD was a product you paid for, or someone was evangelizing about how you're missing out if you don't get the FreeBSD laptop experience, or something. As someone who liked FreeBSD in the past and curious to check it out again, I'm glad to have this handy list.

>It's crazy how much negativity there is in comment threads like this I think it's because this chart continues a trend I've noticed with BSD zealots. Namely, there's some sort of reality distortion effect at play. Consider that there are obvious bullshit scores on TFA, like giving a laptop 9/10 when the fucking wifi doesn't work. In reality, this should be 5/10 or arguably 0/10. After all, what use is a laptop witho…

I think what you're seeing is partly a consequence of how capable Linux has become. Linux is in a weird phase where it can still be enjoyed by hobbyists/enthusiasts/eccentric types, which were arguably its original audience, but now you can also Zoom and do work and install Steam on it, which gives it less appeal from the niche/hobby angle. The software ecosystem in Linux is also increasingly homogenizing, which helps with the "practicality" aspect, but also diminishes the niche appeal. BSDs are in a position to snap up that audience that appreciates engineering elegance/design and uses the computer as an end unto itself (not just as a means to an end). This audience isn't necessarily bothered by wonky laptop WiFi, and may even enjoy tinkering with it as a hobby project. Just my take.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#23

Post by wolvoleo »

Interesting. I use FreeBSD on my desktop too but it's really a desktop so I don't have to bother with WiFi or bluetooth. I generally dislike laptops for ergonomic reasons, and I never bring my computers anywhere anyway so I just buy NUCs. Not having to buy for a display, keyboard, trackpad, battery helps keep the price down.

I like it for several reasons. It's a holistic system which means it's much easier to understand, not a collection of random parts thrown together. There is only really one (big) distro so documentation is easy to come by and consistent. I love the way the updates of the system are uncoupled from the userland software so you can have rolling packages but a stable OS.

Also the ports collection is great (being able to manually compile every package with different flags where needed). And jails. And ZFS first-class citizen. Also I like the attitude. Less involvement from big tech, less strive to change for change's sake. It feels a lot more stable, every new version there's only a few things changed. It's not that with every major update I have to learn everything anew again because someone wanted to include their new init system (like systemd), configuration tools (like ifconfig -> ip), packaging system (like snap) etc. Things that work fine are just left alone.

It has some really good ideas also, like boot environments. But it's not linux. It's not meant to be.

But yeah if you want everything all figured out for you, don't use FreeBSD. Just take a commercial linux like ubuntu. You'll need to tinker a bit, which I like because it helps me understand my system. FreeBSD is a bit like Linux was in the early 2000s, it mostly works but you often have to dive into a shell for some magic. The good thing is having ZFS snapshots as a safety net though. Never really get caught out that way.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#24

Post by sroerick »

There's an axiom here which is that the better your overall user experience is, the less hardware support you are going to have.

The more accessible software becomes the more infra is required to support it, and the more complex and convoluted the software will be

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#25

Post by wolvoleo »

olivierestsage wrote: post #12

It's crazy how much negativity there is in comment threads like this. I would get it if FreeBSD was a product you paid for, or someone was evangelizing about how you're missing out if you don't get the FreeBSD laptop experience, or something. As someone who liked FreeBSD in the past and curious to check it out again, I'm glad to have this handy list.

I am not negative about it at all. I love it.

It's not as polished as linux obviously, especially for desktop usage but the maintainers are very much on the ball (and they do a lot of work to get things to compile and work, there's a lot of linuxisms they have to work around).

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#26

Post by bxparks »

mmsc wrote: post #6

FreeBSD works perfectly on intel MacBooks if you've got one laying around: https://joshua.hu/FreeBSD-on-MacbookPro-114-A1398

From the link: "Note: The inbuilt WiFi chip is not natively supported by FreeBSD, so you will need to (temporarily) use a USB WiFi or Ethernet dongle, or (as I will explain) copy some files from a different system to the Macbook. You could also just transplant a different chip into the system."

You say "works perfectly". I do not think it means what you think it means.

To be fair, Linux also has trouble with the Broadcom chip, the driver needs to be installed as a separate step on most distros.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#27

Post by wolvoleo »

fullstop wrote: post #15
PunchyHamster wrote: post #5

> 9/10 > half of networking doesnt work, and it's the more important one for laptop(wifi) I think they need to revise the scoring

It seems like the best way to get WiFi working in FreeBSD is to run Linux in bhyve and tunnel your connections through there.

FreeBSD 15 has done a lot for WiFi apparently.

I'm not sure how good it is as I don't use wifi but it's supposed to be much better.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#29

Post by gentile »

skydhash wrote: post #4

I have the latitude 7490 and it worked great with Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. The only issue is some hardware design issue where lifting it with one hand will cause it to freeze (possibly some stress causing a shock or a displacement). The best resource to check support is https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/dmesgd

Consider balling up some electrical tape underneath the Ram stick. This solved this very specific issue with my laptop that was flexing too much and crashing.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#30

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

whalesalad wrote: post #20
fullstop wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like the best way to get WiFi working in FreeBSD is to run Linux in bhyve and tunnel your connections through there.

the fact that this is a widely accepted/encouraged practice is genuinely unhinged

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.
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