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Ask HN: Laptop for FreeBSD?

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Re: Ask HN: Laptop for FreeBSD?

#11

Post by superuser2 »

octix wrote: post #7
neduma wrote: post #2

How about Vagrant + FreeBSD in MacBook?

It could be a shock to you, but not everyone loves Mac OS X. There are (imagine that) other OSs that have terminals too. Oh snap! I must've stroke a chord. What did I say? I mean, he asks how to grill a steak, but some suggest how to cook brats.

OSX is very good at not having hardware compatibility issues, and you don't need to interact with it very much to open VirtualBox. While this is not the most performant option (OSX idles with a good chunk of RAM), it is probably the easiest and most reliable path to not worrying about hardware compatibility, drivers, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Laptop for FreeBSD?

#12

Post by cperciva »

I have been running FreeBSD on laptops since 2004. Right now the major problem you'll run into is that almost every system out there has Haswell video, and FreeBSD doesn't have a working driver for that yet.

That said, there have been a lot of commits recently preparing the tree for importing a version of the linux Haswell driver, so I'm optimistic that this will be fixed soon. In the mean time, unless your need for a new laptop is urgent, I'd suggest waiting.

Re: Ask HN: Laptop for FreeBSD?

#13

Post by houst0n_ »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #8

These guys: https://system76.com/laptops have laptops that will run either FreeBSD or Linux. I run Ubuntu on a Thinkpad T430s but looking to upgrade it to a Thinkpad T450s but I want to check out the keyboard first.

They seem to have some pretty neg feedback:

http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1ix69a/system76_suppo...

Re: Ask HN: Laptop for FreeBSD?

#15

Post by AndyKelley »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #8

These guys: https://system76.com/laptops have laptops that will run either FreeBSD or Linux. I run Ubuntu on a Thinkpad T430s but looking to upgrade it to a Thinkpad T450s but I want to check out the keyboard first.

Here's my review: http://andrewkelley.me/post/laptop-review-bonobo-extreme.htm...

Re: Ask HN: Laptop for FreeBSD?

#16

Post by leef »

houst0n_ wrote: post #13
ChuckMcM wrote: post #8

These guys: https://system76.com/laptops have laptops that will run either FreeBSD or Linux. I run Ubuntu on a Thinkpad T430s but looking to upgrade it to a Thinkpad T450s but I want to check out the keyboard first.

They seem to have some pretty neg feedback: http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1ix69a/system76_suppo...

I've been using an (ubuntu) system 76 laptop [1]for the last two years. Great machine, no issues.

[1] - https://system76.com/laptops/gazelle

Re: Ask HN: Laptop for FreeBSD?

#17

Post by aselzer »

octix wrote: post #7
neduma wrote: post #2

How about Vagrant + FreeBSD in MacBook?

It could be a shock to you, but not everyone loves Mac OS X. There are (imagine that) other OSs that have terminals too. Oh snap! I must've stroke a chord. What did I say? I mean, he asks how to grill a steak, but some suggest how to cook brats.

how about MacBook + Linux + QEMU/Virtualbox?

which works great for me BTW

Re: Ask HN: Laptop for FreeBSD?

#18

Post by photex »

leef wrote: post #16
houst0n_ wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seem to have some pretty neg feedback: http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1ix69a/system76_suppo...

I've been using an (ubuntu) system 76 laptop [1]for the last two years. Great machine, no issues. [1] - https://system76.com/laptops/gazelle

Been super happy with my Galago UltraPro as well. Only reason I haven't tried FreeBSD on it yet is because of the Haswellian chipset within

Re: Ask HN: Laptop for FreeBSD?

#19

Post by octix »

aselzer wrote: post #17
octix wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be a shock to you, but not everyone loves Mac OS X. There are (imagine that) other OSs that have terminals too. Oh snap! I must've stroke a chord. What did I say? I mean, he asks how to grill a steak, but some suggest how to cook brats.

how about MacBook + Linux + QEMU/Virtualbox? which works great for me BTW

Can you elaborate please? Linux running inside a VM?

Re: Ask HN: Laptop for FreeBSD?

#20

Post by jrgifford »

superuser2 wrote: post #11
octix wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be a shock to you, but not everyone loves Mac OS X. There are (imagine that) other OSs that have terminals too. Oh snap! I must've stroke a chord. What did I say? I mean, he asks how to grill a steak, but some suggest how to cook brats.

OSX is very good at not having hardware compatibility issues, and you don't need to interact with it very much to open VirtualBox. While this is not the most performant option (OSX idles with a good chunk of RAM), it is probably the easiest and most reliable path to not worrying about hardware compatibility, drivers, etc.

"OS X is very good at not having hardware compatibility issues" is a really, really old (and flawed) argument.

The thing that makes OS X so darn "stable" is that they write drivers for a very limited set of hardware - the reference implementation.

On the Linux reference implementation, everything works properly (See the ThinkPad T series).

On the Windows reference implementation, everything works properly (See the Surface).

Simply because something works when it's built for a piece of hardware (think embedded systems) doesn't mean that it will work when running on something that it wasn't designed for.

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