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Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

freebsdfoundation.github.io

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Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#141

Post by marssaxman »

mmsc wrote: post #57
bxparks wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Broa…

> You say "works perfectly". I do not think it means what you think it means. Copying some files from a different machine is not that burdensome. The point is, it works.

By that logic, every piece of software ever made can be said to work perfectly in every situation, because there is always some amount of additional work which could be done to make up for its native deficiencies.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#142

Post by rfmoz »

NekkoDroid wrote: post #54
throwaway27448 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would get a new laptop because a laptop without WiFi is useless. Why would you not just replace the wifi card or use a USB one? You're greatly overemphasizing how much this matters.

Fun fact: My old Lenovo Y50 only supports like 3 specific WiFi cards else it doesn't even POST. And I think none of them work with upstream Linux drivers (I think, have only 2 different ones and neither worked ages ago and I changed laptops a while ago and haven't retested). Actually I think one didn't have bluetooth work (the non-standard one) and the other needed the broadcom-wl package.

There are modified BIOS firmware that allow any WiFi card. Good luck

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#143

Post by PunchyHamster »

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.

It seems the best way to get WiFi working is to run Linux and FreeBSD in a VM..

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#144

Post by PunchyHamster »

wolvoleo wrote: post #38
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#145

Post by icedchai »

eugenekay wrote: post #110
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?

FreeBSD will never switch to systemd. :-) It is an old-school UNIX experience, not great for desktops but excellent for long-lived “pet servers” where long-term stability over decades of service is valued. I treasure it for running small Web servers and shell hosts, instead of Debian/Ubuntu.

Same. I've been running it on a "pet" server since the mid 90's, for shell, web, email, etc. I started on FreeBSD 2.x and has been through many upgrades and migrations! I also worked at an early ISP and FreeBSD was our go-to for email, NNTP, and DNS.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#146

Post by SoftTalker »

skydhash wrote: post #64
stackghost wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you don’t care about administrating your computer and just want to use some software on some hardware, the BSDs are not that great. Yes this is my opinion also. BSD seems more suited to people for whom fiddling with the OS itself is the point, rather than the OS being a tool to get other things done. I fall firmly into the latter camp. I'd rather chew glass than manually set flags in rc.conf

I like the word tune rather than fiddle. The BSD are very stable. You adjust some configuration, and then updates without having to change your tools or your config with every release. The config are not provided out of the box but the manuals can be very informative. A lot of current GNU/Linux complexity have no benefits for most users and may be an hindrance when they want to slightly alter their use cases. sudo ->…

OpenBSD doesn't have containers but does have a virtual machine system (vmm(4), vmd(8), vmctl(8)) in base.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#147

Post by NekkoDroid »

rfmoz wrote: post #142
NekkoDroid wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: My old Lenovo Y50 only supports like 3 specific WiFi cards else it doesn't even POST. And I think none of them work with upstream Linux drivers (I think, have only 2 different ones and neither worked ages ago and I changed laptops a while ago and haven't retested). Actually I think one didn't have bluetooth work (the non-standard one) and the other needed the broadcom-wl package.

There are modified BIOS firmware that allow any WiFi card. Good luck

I remember seeing something in that direction when I was looking but never did look deeper into it.

The post made me actually take out the laptop again and maybe use it as a server or something like that in the future and for that I'd use ethernet anyway.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#148

Post by maximilianburke »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #99
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…

> OpenBSD zealots claiming it's 110% secure because trust me bro Or possibly because it has a good track record. If you'd like to point at actual vulnerabilities go ahead.

It's not so much the vulnerabiltiies as that OpenBSD's mitigations often seem targeted towards imaginary issues.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#149

Post by evanjrowley »

jmspring wrote: post #139
sharts wrote: post #137

The funny thing is the BSDs would likely have better support if most folks complaining here actually used BSD for their infra. No, you don’t need linux to run your python webapp that you actually tested on your macbook.

But docker! I've been using jails/etc and the pattern with way I setup and configure my FreeBSD servers hasn't significantly changed in 20 years.

>But docker

Maybe one day! One of the things that has changed in the past 20 years with FreeBSD is the addition of bhyve. Virtualization on FreeBSD was not great prior to bhyve. Because FreeBSD waited to implement it, they ended up with an arguably more modern hypervisor versus what Linux had at the time. Maybe history will repeat when it comes to application containers / docker images. Podman came 5 years after Docker and the result was better. It could happen with FreeBSD too.

Re: Top laptops to use with FreeBSD

#150

Post by evanjrowley »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #144
wolvoleo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Definitely not independent kernels but my guess is he's referring to Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) - it gets turned on by default if your Win10/11 system has virtualization enabled.

  One such example security solution is memory integrity, which protects and hardens Windows by running kernel mode code integrity within the isolated virtual environment of VBS. Kernel mode code integrity is the Windows process that checks all kernel mode drivers and binaries before they're started, and prevents unsigned or untrusted drivers or system files from being loaded into system memory.
I suppose this applies to Wi-Fi drivers?

Link: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/de...

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