16 ms·

Would this be considered the standard amount of things someone would need to work out to get a bsd laptop up and useable?(or are there more preconfigured images

by gen3 7y ago

Would this be considered the standard amount of things someone would need to work out to get a bsd laptop up and useable?(or are there more preconfigured images?) Are Thinkpads best for support?

simcop2387 7y ago
Can't say anything about support, but the x11 settings for hidpi and all that are all because of his choice of window manager. i3 is a very hands off, only manages windows kind of thing. Using a full desktop environment will make forgoing all the editing of files. The rest seems to be normal bsd setup stuff, but I know little of that beyond setting up a few virtual machines to test things
- gen3 7y ago
  Ah thanks. I’ve been reading around, but most posts I see are from 2017 or earlier. I’ve been thinking of giving it a go on my xps, but wasn’t sure about driver support. Looks like support is there.
tiew9Vii 7y ago
There was this post recently about OpenBSD on the Lenovo X1 Carbon https://jcs.org/2019/08/14/x1c7 https://jcs.org/2019/08/14/x1c7 . From what I read OpenBSD can be better supported than FreeBSD on laptops, especially the Thinkpads as that's what a lot of OpenBSD devs used.
- messe 7y ago
  OpenBSD tends to have nicer defaults. On laptops the volume and brightness keys work everywhere out of the box, including on the console, without needing to be configured, unlike on FreeBSD, NetBSD, (and Linux, where they only work on X11) FreeBSD has a couple more drivers for wireless cards than OpenBSD, and has some GPL drivers that you can optionally compile in for even wider support (bwn has optional GPL components for example). But for most hardware, the support will be very similar (aside from bluetooth, which OpenBSD got rid of because their code was poor and unmaintained—nobody's gotten around to writing another bluetooth stack yet) I prefer OpenBSD, but FreeBSD has a lot going for it too with Jails, ZFS, support for NVIDIA cards, Wayland.
  - Xylakant 7y ago
    > (and Linux, where they only work on X11 Volume and Brightness keys have always worked fine on my fedora even after they defaulted to wayland.
    - cosarara 7y ago
      I think he was referring to the TTYs, without wayland in mind.
      - messe 7y ago
        Yep. I need to get out of the habit of referring to any graphical environment on a Unix as X11.
    - messe 7y ago
      You're right, I should have said "on X11/Wayland DEs".
  - floatboth 7y ago
    On ThinkPads specifically, brightness on FreeBSD works in the virtual console just fine. ThinkPads handle it via the EC I think.
zenlot 7y ago
I've been using FreeBSD since version 4.3 on and off. Most of the time I've used it with variants of ThinkPads, recent ones were T530i and E480. The longest period I've spent as my main OS was long time ago on Sony Vaio VGN-FS550. In a sense it has improved a lot, but also managed to remain complicated for someone who just want to test things without prior knowledge. But yes, this is typical amount of things you need to undergo when starting with FreeBSD. And it remained pretty much the same for the past 19 years. I've switched to Linux as my main OS, just because I wanted things to work out of the box.
- toyg 7y ago
  > I've switched to Linux as my main OS, just because I wanted things to work out of the box. As an old geek, statements like this still feel weird, in a very good way. Remember winmodems and XFree86? Eh.
  - hollerith 7y ago
    Hasn't it always been the case that Linux is more likely to work out of the box than FreeBSD is on a laptop not specifically chosen for FreeBSD support?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - mhd 7y ago
      Sure, but "more likely" still meant "unlikely" not too long ago. Unless on a laptop specifically chosen for Linux support.
  - zenlot 7y ago
    Laziness kicks in with years ;)
- nimmen 7y ago
  I used new thinkpad x220 back in the day, the only annoying thing was that lan required some driver download from vendor(realtek, if remember correctly), did not work out of the box. Don't think I've messed much with other things, so they worked ok for me out of the box(but my requirements might be different). Been user since 6.0
pushpop 7y ago
Not really. At least not in the way that blog post has been presented. Normally you’ll be told as you install things if there is any manual amendments to configure files required. So it’s all quite discoverable. That said, if you’re used to Linux and Windows where you can just start services then daemons on FreeBSD might catch you out because you need to (or rather, get “told” to) manually edit the rc.conf file for any services you want. It only takes a few seconds to do but I can see why some people might find it an annoyance if they’re not used to manually editing system files (personally I don’t mind but I’ve been using UNIX for decades).
lars_francke 7y ago
As someone who's just (last week) started to get Arch Linux up and running on a T490 I would assume that: Yes, this is _at least_ the amount of things you need to do but if my experience is any indication this is only like 10% of it. Most of the things in Thinkpads work but not all (notably the latest WWAN LTE Modems don't have support). I could write up my experience if there's interest.
- faizshah 7y ago
  I just set up a new laptop with fedora because I figured Arch would be too much effort. Is it really that easy to get running? I figured with arch when you run into an issue it must be much harder to fix than fedora or ubuntu. I just want to open up an ide, terminal, and a browser but arch seems to be a whole hobby in itself.
  - kart23 7y ago
    Stick with ubuntu. Arch has benefits, but most new users will do just fine without it, and arch can be a big pain to get running.
    - PPAqualifier 7y ago
      Until you figure that Ubuntu is full of shit. Snap packages are a piece of shit, and, whenever you need any kind of unmastobatory software packages you'll need to add PPAs. Ubuntu has gone to hell since the Snap ordeal. Arch is the only way to go.
      - kart23 7y ago
        I use arch exactly for that reason, but I could not imagine getting started with arch as my first linux experience. You should at least learn the basics on ubuntu first. I think there's a good natural progression with linux, and that you can and should switch to arch once you outgrow ubuntu.
  - i_dursun 7y ago
sureaboutthis 7y ago
FreeBSD is a complete operating system but it is not like Linux distros where everything is pre-packaged for you (but then requiring distro hopping to find what you really want). I can install what I want for a complete desktop system in about 20 minutes on FreeBSD.

by gen3 7y ago

Would this be considered the standard amount of things someone would need to work out to get a bsd laptop up and useable?(or are there more preconfigured images?) Are Thinkpads best for support?

simcop2387 7y ago

Can't say anything about support, but the x11 settings for hidpi and all that are all because of his choice of window manager. i3 is a very hands off, only manages windows kind of thing. Using a full desktop environment will make forgoing all the editing of files. The rest seems to be normal bsd setup stuff, but I know little of that beyond setting up a few virtual machines to test things

gen3 7y ago
Ah thanks. I’ve been reading around, but most posts I see are from 2017 or earlier. I’ve been thinking of giving it a go on my xps, but wasn’t sure about driver support. Looks like support is there.

tiew9Vii 7y ago

There was this post recently about OpenBSD on the Lenovo X1 Carbon https://jcs.org/2019/08/14/x1c7 https://jcs.org/2019/08/14/x1c7 . From what I read OpenBSD can be better supported than FreeBSD on laptops, especially the Thinkpads as that's what a lot of OpenBSD devs used.

messe 7y ago
OpenBSD tends to have nicer defaults. On laptops the volume and brightness keys work everywhere out of the box, including on the console, without needing to be configured, unlike on FreeBSD, NetBSD, (and Linux, where they only work on X11) FreeBSD has a couple more drivers for wireless cards than OpenBSD, and has some GPL drivers that you can optionally compile in for even wider support (bwn has optional GPL components for example). But for most hardware, the support will be very similar (aside from bluetooth, which OpenBSD got rid of because their code was poor and unmaintained—nobody's gotten around to writing another bluetooth stack yet) I prefer OpenBSD, but FreeBSD has a lot going for it too with Jails, ZFS, support for NVIDIA cards, Wayland.
- Xylakant 7y ago
  > (and Linux, where they only work on X11 Volume and Brightness keys have always worked fine on my fedora even after they defaulted to wayland.
  - cosarara 7y ago
    I think he was referring to the TTYs, without wayland in mind.
    - messe 7y ago
      Yep. I need to get out of the habit of referring to any graphical environment on a Unix as X11.
  - messe 7y ago
    You're right, I should have said "on X11/Wayland DEs".
- floatboth 7y ago
  On ThinkPads specifically, brightness on FreeBSD works in the virtual console just fine. ThinkPads handle it via the EC I think.

zenlot 7y ago

I've been using FreeBSD since version 4.3 on and off. Most of the time I've used it with variants of ThinkPads, recent ones were T530i and E480. The longest period I've spent as my main OS was long time ago on Sony Vaio VGN-FS550. In a sense it has improved a lot, but also managed to remain complicated for someone who just want to test things without prior knowledge. But yes, this is typical amount of things you need to undergo when starting with FreeBSD. And it remained pretty much the same for the past 19 years. I've switched to Linux as my main OS, just because I wanted things to work out of the box.

toyg 7y ago
> I've switched to Linux as my main OS, just because I wanted things to work out of the box. As an old geek, statements like this still feel weird, in a very good way. Remember winmodems and XFree86? Eh.
- hollerith 7y ago
  Hasn't it always been the case that Linux is more likely to work out of the box than FreeBSD is on a laptop not specifically chosen for FreeBSD support?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - mhd 7y ago
    Sure, but "more likely" still meant "unlikely" not too long ago. Unless on a laptop specifically chosen for Linux support.
- zenlot 7y ago
  Laziness kicks in with years ;)
nimmen 7y ago
I used new thinkpad x220 back in the day, the only annoying thing was that lan required some driver download from vendor(realtek, if remember correctly), did not work out of the box. Don't think I've messed much with other things, so they worked ok for me out of the box(but my requirements might be different). Been user since 6.0

pushpop 7y ago

Not really. At least not in the way that blog post has been presented. Normally you’ll be told as you install things if there is any manual amendments to configure files required. So it’s all quite discoverable. That said, if you’re used to Linux and Windows where you can just start services then daemons on FreeBSD might catch you out because you need to (or rather, get “told” to) manually edit the rc.conf file for any services you want. It only takes a few seconds to do but I can see why some people might find it an annoyance if they’re not used to manually editing system files (personally I don’t mind but I’ve been using UNIX for decades).

lars_francke 7y ago

As someone who's just (last week) started to get Arch Linux up and running on a T490 I would assume that: Yes, this is _at least_ the amount of things you need to do but if my experience is any indication this is only like 10% of it. Most of the things in Thinkpads work but not all (notably the latest WWAN LTE Modems don't have support). I could write up my experience if there's interest.

faizshah 7y ago
I just set up a new laptop with fedora because I figured Arch would be too much effort. Is it really that easy to get running? I figured with arch when you run into an issue it must be much harder to fix than fedora or ubuntu. I just want to open up an ide, terminal, and a browser but arch seems to be a whole hobby in itself.
- kart23 7y ago
  Stick with ubuntu. Arch has benefits, but most new users will do just fine without it, and arch can be a big pain to get running.
  - PPAqualifier 7y ago
    Until you figure that Ubuntu is full of shit. Snap packages are a piece of shit, and, whenever you need any kind of unmastobatory software packages you'll need to add PPAs. Ubuntu has gone to hell since the Snap ordeal. Arch is the only way to go.
    - kart23 7y ago
      I use arch exactly for that reason, but I could not imagine getting started with arch as my first linux experience. You should at least learn the basics on ubuntu first. I think there's a good natural progression with linux, and that you can and should switch to arch once you outgrow ubuntu.
- i_dursun 7y ago

sureaboutthis 7y ago

FreeBSD is a complete operating system but it is not like Linux distros where everything is pre-packaged for you (but then requiring distro hopping to find what you really want). I can install what I want for a complete desktop system in about 20 minutes on FreeBSD.