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Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

freebsdfoundation.github.io

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Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#121

Post by mghackerlady »

sidkshatriya wrote: post #42
stackghost wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 would get a new laptop because a laptop without WiFi is useless. You can run Linux in a VM and PCI passthrough your WiFi Adapter. Linux drivers will be able to connect to your wifi card and you can then supply internet to FreeBSD. Doing this manually is complicated but the whole process has been automated on FreeBSD by "Wifibox" https://freebsdfoundation.org/our-work/journal/browser-based... I tried it myself and…

is there a similar thing for GPUs? I want to build a workstation and have it work on freebsd but would prefer to use an intel arc card which has no information about freebsd compatibility online

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#123

Post by unixhero »

Ooh! I have lne of those T490 laptops. Except my wife had 1 liter of liquid detergent into it after putting a single bagged carton of it into my suitcase to bring on vacay. Great fun. The screen flickers.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#124

Post by ux266478 »

bluebarbet wrote: post #104
ux266478 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most devices in that class I see run some vendor flavor of Android or ChromeOS and not Windows, so definitionally speaking they do run Linux out of the box.

Yes but it's a bit academic. The problem is that getting a FOSS distro of Linux onto low-end general-purpose computing hardware is harder now than it was a decade ago. I speak from bitter recent experience.

Oh, I know perfectly well what you mean. The move to the SoC paradigm has serious implications for the future of computing freedom. I can't imagine how we might be able to fight this crap, realistically.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#125

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

bluebarbet wrote: post #102
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're looking at sub-$400 computers, especially on ARM, it seems like we have to include the large segment of ChromeOS devices that only run Linux out of the box (or at all, generally).

Referring to Intel Chromebooks (i.e. laptops), that segment is now dwindling in size much as its predecessor (Intel Windows netbooks) did a few years ago. Most low-end ChromeOS devices now run on ARM. And Android is nipping at their heels.

Sure. And all of those devices run Linux. Some of them even run other Linux OSs decently; one of my daily drivers is an ARM Chromebook running postmarketos.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#126

Post by bluebarbet »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #125
bluebarbet wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Referring to Intel Chromebooks (i.e. laptops), that segment is now dwindling in size much as its predecessor (Intel Windows netbooks) did a few years ago. Most low-end ChromeOS devices now run on ARM. And Android is nipping at their heels.

Sure. And all of those devices run Linux. Some of them even run other Linux OSs decently; one of my daily drivers is an ARM Chromebook running postmarketos.

It is not trivial to get FOSS Linux onto a write-protected Intel Chromebook, compared to a Windows netbook of yore. It is harder still to get it onto an ARM Chromebook or Android tablet. PostmarketOS is a bit simpler (or at least better documented) but it is not a full Linux distro.

Installing a fully-fledged FOSS OS on low-end general-purpose computing hardware is getting harder. Certainly for the non-techies who have to be part of FOSS if it is to survive.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#127

Post by jmspring »

fl4regun wrote: post #108

So can anyone give me a short explanation on why someone would use freeBSD over linux? I do run it technically, on my router (OPNSense), but that's not a personal computer, like a desktop or laptop. What are the advantages to running FreeBSD?

Stability and security. It's a great server OS and I've been using it for decades.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#128

Post by jmspring »

sausagefeet wrote: post #118
fl4regun wrote: post #108

So can anyone give me a short explanation on why someone would use freeBSD over linux? I do run it technically, on my router (OPNSense), but that's not a personal computer, like a desktop or laptop. What are the advantages to running FreeBSD?

I have a few reasons: 1. I subjectively just like it better. Things like dtrace, jails, the init system, just click for me. 2. I think it's good to not support a Linux mono-culture. Yes, there is Windows and macOS, but in terms of open source OS's, I think it's good to have more than one choice and so for any rough edges in FreeBSD, I'm willing to deal with them to support that goal. 3. I don't think you'll find any…

CUDA gets into an area that I wouldn't use it for. My local LLM machine is running Void linux.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#129

Post by trinix912 »

bityard wrote: post #69
wolvoleo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Broadcom Here's the real problem. It's sad how a company that spawned the raspberry pi in earlier times got so evil so quickly.

Broadcom (and to a lesser extent, Realtek) devices had always been anywhere between hit-or-miss and completely unworkable on Linux, LONG before Raspberry Pi came around.

My experience too. Sometimes I did manage to eventually get their cards working under Linux after pulling some proprietary firmware blobs.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#130

Post by ux266478 »

cevn wrote: post #103
ux266478 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think so?

It's sad because it removes choice from users over what OS to run. People that only use windows are going and throwing their old computers away.

I think of it more in the reverse, the choice being removed is the hardware you can use. It has been the case from the dawn of computing that you start from a usecase (which correlates to software, which maps to an operating system) and then look at your options for hardware. The more specific your usecase, the more specific your software, which correlates to a specific choice of hardware. There is no, and can be no, "have it all". It's a fundamental principle of mathematics, the postulates you choose radically change the set of proofs you have access to, and the set of proofs you choose entail the axioms and structures you can take.

Now it can be better or worse, and right now it's never been better. There was a time when your language, your shell and your operating system were specific to the exact model of computer (not just a patched kernel, everything was fully bespoke) and you have a very limited set of peripherals. That we suffer from more esoteric operating systems lagging behind the bleeding edge of extremely complicated peripherals is a very good place to be in. That there's always room for improvement shouldn't be cause for sadness.

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