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Is OpenBSD suitable for use on a laptop? I have a Dell Latitute 7370 running KDE Neon, and it runs really well. All hardware is supported, battery life is on-pa

Is OpenBSD suitable for use on a laptop? I have a Dell Latitute 7370 running KDE Neon, and it runs really well. All hardware is supported, battery life is on-par with Windows, etc. Would OpenBSD work well on this laptop?

johnnycarcin 8y ago
I'd like to hear about this as well. OpenBSD has been on my list of "to try" for quite awhile but the app/package thing has been a big question mark for me. I _really_ enjoy being able to apt-get or brew install pretty much any of the applications out there and am a bit worried about how that experience would be on OpenBSD. I guess the best way to find out would be to try it eh? :)
- magnetic 8y ago
  There is the core install and then packages that you can add just as easily as apt-get.
  - ahje 8y ago
    Does that apply to updates as well?
    - sverige 8y ago
      Yes. syspatch and pkg_add -u handle updates.
toyg 8y ago
Driver support will always trail behind Linux, so it depends. Personally, I’d be more interested into having openbsd as the standard for cloud deployments, a place currently inhabited by Ubuntu derivatives. If one could get the declarative goodness of Nix, the popularity of docker, and the reliability / security of openbsd, the world would be a better place.
- bpye 8y ago
  No reason Nix shouldn't be able to run on OpenBSD right? Nix works on macOS quite well. It would obviously take some work to get it to configure the built in OpenBSD services but it seems like it could be worth the effort.
vtail 8y ago
Thinkpads are VERY well supported - pretty much everything works, except bluetooth and fingerprint reader. I just ordered a Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th gen as a replacement for aging Macbook to use as a main home machine. You can search NYC*BUG board, where users submit their dmesg(8) output, e.g. there is a submission[1] for Dell Latitude e7270. [1]http://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi?do=view&id=3466 http://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi?do=view&id=3466
dx87 8y ago
It's lacking a lot of the hardware support that Linux has. I wanted to try it out a year or 2 ago and it isn't compatible with any of the 4-5 desktops and laptops I have, but common Linux distros install on all of them with no issues. The only way I could get OpenBSD to install was as a VM.
a7776f88862 8y ago
I have three laptops, two run OpenBSD, the other one Debian stable. Not sure how well battery utilization compares (don't need battery for more than an hour usually). Both work fine, and from a user-space perspective are very similar (esp. if you automate configuration and dotfiles). OpenBSD is about a magnitude less work to configure, especially if you have a non-trivial network setup (and some things, like IPv6 LLA aliases in /etc/hosts, Debian stable does not even support). If you are reliant on garbage like NetworkManager and Gnome/KDE auto-mounting the story is probably different, but that is just a good opportunity to learn better ways of working on Unix.
yellowapple 8y ago
I don't know about that specific laptop, but I was running OpenBSD on my work laptop (ThinkPad T470) for awhile and it worked reasonably well (though I'm more tolerant of things like suspend/resume not working right). I ended up having to switch to Slackware, though; lots of stuff I have to use for work that simply doesn't run on OpenBSD. If vmm gets to the point where I'm able to run Linux desktop apps with reasonable performance (and ideally a reasonable degree of integration with the rest of the system) I might try switching back.
lmaximus1983 8y ago
As that model has an intel chipset it will probably work fine. The main problem will be wireless because of Intel have the micro-code blob. IIRC you will need want to look at this: https://man.openbsd.org/fw_update.1 https://man.openbsd.org/fw_update.1 It basically requires you to copy the firmware to a USB stick and run the tool and then Wireless just works.
sverige 8y ago
I run OpenBSD on a Dell Latitude as a daily driver. Works great.
peter_hansteen 8y ago
More likely than not, you will be up and running inside of minutes. My most recent laptop upgrade ran like this: http://bsdly.blogspot.com/2017/07/openbsd-and-modern-laptop.html http://bsdly.blogspot.com/2017/07/openbsd-and-modern-laptop....

johnnycarcin 8y ago

I'd like to hear about this as well. OpenBSD has been on my list of "to try" for quite awhile but the app/package thing has been a big question mark for me. I _really_ enjoy being able to apt-get or brew install pretty much any of the applications out there and am a bit worried about how that experience would be on OpenBSD. I guess the best way to find out would be to try it eh? :)

magnetic 8y ago
There is the core install and then packages that you can add just as easily as apt-get.
- ahje 8y ago
  Does that apply to updates as well?
  - sverige 8y ago
    Yes. syspatch and pkg_add -u handle updates.

toyg 8y ago

Driver support will always trail behind Linux, so it depends. Personally, I’d be more interested into having openbsd as the standard for cloud deployments, a place currently inhabited by Ubuntu derivatives. If one could get the declarative goodness of Nix, the popularity of docker, and the reliability / security of openbsd, the world would be a better place.

bpye 8y ago
No reason Nix shouldn't be able to run on OpenBSD right? Nix works on macOS quite well. It would obviously take some work to get it to configure the built in OpenBSD services but it seems like it could be worth the effort.

vtail 8y ago

Thinkpads are VERY well supported - pretty much everything works, except bluetooth and fingerprint reader. I just ordered a Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th gen as a replacement for aging Macbook to use as a main home machine. You can search NYC*BUG board, where users submit their dmesg(8) output, e.g. there is a submission[1] for Dell Latitude e7270. [1]http://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi?do=view&id=3466 http://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi?do=view&id=3466

dx87 8y ago

It's lacking a lot of the hardware support that Linux has. I wanted to try it out a year or 2 ago and it isn't compatible with any of the 4-5 desktops and laptops I have, but common Linux distros install on all of them with no issues. The only way I could get OpenBSD to install was as a VM.

a7776f88862 8y ago

I have three laptops, two run OpenBSD, the other one Debian stable. Not sure how well battery utilization compares (don't need battery for more than an hour usually). Both work fine, and from a user-space perspective are very similar (esp. if you automate configuration and dotfiles). OpenBSD is about a magnitude less work to configure, especially if you have a non-trivial network setup (and some things, like IPv6 LLA aliases in /etc/hosts, Debian stable does not even support). If you are reliant on garbage like NetworkManager and Gnome/KDE auto-mounting the story is probably different, but that is just a good opportunity to learn better ways of working on Unix.

yellowapple 8y ago

I don't know about that specific laptop, but I was running OpenBSD on my work laptop (ThinkPad T470) for awhile and it worked reasonably well (though I'm more tolerant of things like suspend/resume not working right). I ended up having to switch to Slackware, though; lots of stuff I have to use for work that simply doesn't run on OpenBSD. If vmm gets to the point where I'm able to run Linux desktop apps with reasonable performance (and ideally a reasonable degree of integration with the rest of the system) I might try switching back.

lmaximus1983 8y ago

As that model has an intel chipset it will probably work fine. The main problem will be wireless because of Intel have the micro-code blob. IIRC you will need want to look at this: https://man.openbsd.org/fw_update.1 https://man.openbsd.org/fw_update.1 It basically requires you to copy the firmware to a USB stick and run the tool and then Wireless just works.

sverige 8y ago

I run OpenBSD on a Dell Latitude as a daily driver. Works great.

peter_hansteen 8y ago

More likely than not, you will be up and running inside of minutes. My most recent laptop upgrade ran like this: http://bsdly.blogspot.com/2017/07/openbsd-and-modern-laptop.html http://bsdly.blogspot.com/2017/07/openbsd-and-modern-laptop....