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OpenBSD Is Now My Workstation

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Re: OpenBSD Is Now My Workstation

#111

Post by oil25 »

lone_haxx0r wrote: post #39

I hate the fact that Thinkpads are the laptops with the best OpenBSD support. I dislike Thinkpads for two reasons: - They're made by Lenovo. A couple of years ago, Lenovo bundled malware in the BIOS of their laptops [superfish incident]. For that reason, I won't ever again buy a single product from them, since I can't trust them. - They're ugly. I find most current laptops ugly, so this may be my fault, and by itself…

One of the main advantages of Thinkpad is Coreboot/Libreboot support to free yourself from Lenovo BIOS - and even neuter Intel ME. Aesthetics are a personal matter, but ergonomically I also prefer Thinkpad over MacBooks.

Re: OpenBSD Is Now My Workstation

#112

Post by oil25 »

_x5tx wrote: post #13

I tried openbsd in my thinkpad x220. IDK if the processor only make a huge difference (mine being core i3 2.1ghz), but what I saw was a slow system experience, opening firefox for the first time (after boot) took a decade. I would experience slugishness everytime I closed a tab. And I was using cwm which is supposed to be even more lightweight than xfce4. I'm upgrading my motherboard to have the same processor as the…

OpenBSD disables Intel Hyperthreading by default. If you don't mind the security risk, you can enable it with a kernel flag. The other comment about using apm to adjust performance is spot on, too.

Re: OpenBSD Is Now My Workstation

#113

Post by anthony_doan »

I bought a used Thinkpad to use OpenBSD.

The default installation is good and the internals are easy to understand. It's not as complicated as Linux. The security etho is what brought me to OpenBSD and the simplicity and easy to understand how everything works made me love it even more.

The only reason why I haven't use it much after a few months is because I needed RStudio. I wanted to settle for tmux+vim workflow for R but I've been busy with other stuff.

Re: OpenBSD Is Now My Workstation

#114

Post by elagost »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #47
dijit wrote: post #2

I like openbsd. I like their attitude (even if many don’t) I like what they’ve given to the UNIX-likes, and what they strip away due to complexity (removal of Bluetooth) or lack of decent UX (wpa_supplicant), or just potential issues (removal of Hyperthreading) I know it’s probably controversial to mention it; but I’m also glad they didn’t buy into the code of conduct saga that waved over FreeBSD and eventually Linux…

Does OpenBSD have an alternative to wpa_supplicant? I've been using wpa_supplicant under the hood for ages, but only recently learned anything about it... and it's actually very good, except that it's CLI interface is so low-level and difficult to use.

wpa_gui does come with wpa_supplicant in many distributions and is easy enough to configure. This helped me configure it: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-953484-start-0.html

Re: OpenBSD Is Now My Workstation

#116

Post by quickthrower2 »

NortySpock wrote: post #42
lone_haxx0r wrote: post #39

I hate the fact that Thinkpads are the laptops with the best OpenBSD support. I dislike Thinkpads for two reasons: - They're made by Lenovo. A couple of years ago, Lenovo bundled malware in the BIOS of their laptops [superfish incident]. For that reason, I won't ever again buy a single product from them, since I can't trust them. - They're ugly. I find most current laptops ugly, so this may be my fault, and by itself…

Ugly like a Thinkpad is normally, or ugly even for a Thinkpad? Because I would normally put the Thinkpad in a "a design only an engineer could love" category.

I love it (OK I am an `"engineer"' aka slinger of JS). The keyboard of the X230 and form factor was damn good. I loved using it until I stupidly cracked the screen.

Re: OpenBSD Is Now My Workstation

#117

Post by Stratoscope »

RaleyField wrote: post #110
architect64 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, the Superfish and LSE BIOS scandals didn't apply to ThinkPads. I think Lenovo understands that they have too many serious business and gov clients using ThinkPads to risk doing something silly like that to their professional-grade ThinkPad brand.

> For what it's worth Not much in my book. The problem isn't Superfish, the problem is leadership that allowed it.

ThinkPad is under rather different leadership from Lenovo's consumer division that had the Superfish debacle on IdeaPads and the like. Sure, they are part of one corporation at the very top, but you don't have to go very far down the org chart before they split into separate teams and leadership.

ThinkPad is from the old IBM teams in Raleigh and Yamato. Lenovo made their own laptops before buying IBM's personal computer division, and that line (and its management) became IdeaPad.

If you're troubled by leadership that would allow Superfish (as I am), buy a ThinkPad, not an IdeaPad.

Previous discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20240533

Re: OpenBSD Is Now My Workstation

#118

Post by aaronbrethorst »

derefr wrote: post #105
calcifer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was quite abusive actually, not "abusive".

You seem to be interpreting the parent as using scare-quotes to disagree with the idea that Linus's behavior was "abusive." But the parent comment was, as far as I can tell, intending to use regular quotation marks, in the way a journalist does (and as I just did)—to mention what someone else said, without endorsing or denying that opinion as their own, in order to avoid an argument. (Personally, I think more things…

Quotes only work with attribution

Re: OpenBSD Is Now My Workstation

#119

Post by _delirium »

_x5tx wrote: post #13

I tried openbsd in my thinkpad x220. IDK if the processor only make a huge difference (mine being core i3 2.1ghz), but what I saw was a slow system experience, opening firefox for the first time (after boot) took a decade. I would experience slugishness everytime I closed a tab. And I was using cwm which is supposed to be even more lightweight than xfce4. I'm upgrading my motherboard to have the same processor as the…

Firefox in particular has historically had some issues. When did you try it? This is a post from 2016 mentioning a few of the performance issues at the time: https://flak.tedunangst.com/post/firefox-vs-rthreads

Some have since been fixed, though no doubt others have arisen, since Firefox is something of a moving target.

Re: OpenBSD Is Now My Workstation

#120

Post by Stratoscope »

keyle wrote: post #108
lone_haxx0r wrote: post #39

I hate the fact that Thinkpads are the laptops with the best OpenBSD support. I dislike Thinkpads for two reasons: - They're made by Lenovo. A couple of years ago, Lenovo bundled malware in the BIOS of their laptops [superfish incident]. For that reason, I won't ever again buy a single product from them, since I can't trust them. - They're ugly. I find most current laptops ugly, so this may be my fault, and by itself…

I agree and I will add another reason... I had an original IBM thinkpad and I loved it. Even the red nipple thing on the keyboard. I bought a cheaper one from lenovo labelled 'thinkpad' and it was disgustingly cheap. The keyboard felt cheap, the trackpad was unusable. You want to make a cheap laptop, fine, but don't tarnish the 'thinkpad' brand. I've never looked back.

Do you happen to recall the model name of that disgustingly cheap ThinkPad? (Examples are T480, E520, etc.) Especially the first letter - that tells what series it is. There are some like the E and L series that are not regarded as being the same quality as others like the T and X series.
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