4 ms·

I own these and they also work great with FreeBSD: ThinkPads: - W520/W530/T520/T530/X220/X230/T420s - T480 - T14 GEN1 (Intel) - T14 GEN1 (AMD) I needed to

I own these and they also work great with FreeBSD: ThinkPads: - W520/W530/T520/T530/X220/X230/T420s - T480 - T14 GEN1 (Intel) - T14 GEN1 (AMD) I needed to replace MediaTek WiFi card on T14 (AMD) into some Intel WiFi one. Hope that helps. Regards, vermaden

ggm 6mo ago
Update the matrix on the source site?
nosioptar 6mo ago
That's quite helpful. I'm potentially switching my x220t and t530 to a BSD this year, might also get a gen 1 t14.
- vermaden 6mo ago
  The good thing about T530 (and T520) is that You can put there the same Quad Core CPU that W520/W530 has :)
autoexec 6mo ago
Buying a thinkpad means using a device made by Lenovo, a company which has repeatedly shipped devices infected with malware and backdoors (sometimes for profit) see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Security_and_privacy_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Security_and_privacy_in...
- broken-kebab 6mo ago
  He apparently wipes all of that when installing FreeBSD though.
  - autoexec 6mo ago
    I wouldn't trust their firmware/hardware anymore than I would their software. I wouldn't encourage them as a company either.
    - broken-kebab 6mo ago
      Trust is undef unless assessed within a context. We have zero reasons to trust more or less any vendor's firmware/hardware because they are unauditable. But from experience we can say it works most of the time and there's no discernible difference between Lenovo, Dell, or Apple
- bigyabai 6mo ago
  I hope it pays well, those Windows users are subsidizing some great hardware.
MisterTea 6mo ago
Love the Thinkpad line. It's kinda the hackers laptop of choice. > X220/X230 These are pretty solid with dual batteries. Also popular for OpenBSD and 9front, the latter of which I run on an x230 (it stopped charging the removable battery :-/) You can get about 2 hours off the internal and 6~8 with a big fat removable battery, maybe more if the OS and drivers can properly throttle hardware power settings. I have an X1 carbon 5th gen and it's quite light but not useful for 9front without some Ethernet driver tweaking (likely some phy bits need twiddling.) Instead I tossed Debian on it and run 9front in a VM if I need a local CPU. So far it just seems to work including Ethernet (via a dongle) and WiFi.
eth0up 6mo ago
I just went through T14 Gen 1 hell. I tried to replace a broken LCD and the system just wouldn't boot. I fussed with it so much, the flimsy case cracked and broke in several places. I gave up and decided to use it as a clamshell, but had to keep the broken screen connected to boot. But I couldn't get it to see the external monitor. I fought this for hours. I finally reached my patience threshold and tore the fucking LCD off the case. It hurt the hands a bit but was cathartic. Amazingly, it booted and saw the monitor, magically. I was astonished. With or without the broken screen, it wouldn't boot. But going psycho on it fixed it. Proof in the wholesomeness of violence, maybe not. But... it's not running BSD. It's now my mom's desktop, and it's running Void. Works great, and I love the Ryzen 4700, with 16gb ram and atheros wifi chip. Delicate, but capable of some extremes :)

ggm 6mo ago

Update the matrix on the source site?

nosioptar 6mo ago

That's quite helpful. I'm potentially switching my x220t and t530 to a BSD this year, might also get a gen 1 t14.

vermaden 6mo ago
The good thing about T530 (and T520) is that You can put there the same Quad Core CPU that W520/W530 has :)

autoexec 6mo ago

Buying a thinkpad means using a device made by Lenovo, a company which has repeatedly shipped devices infected with malware and backdoors (sometimes for profit) see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Security_and_privacy_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Security_and_privacy_in...

broken-kebab 6mo ago
He apparently wipes all of that when installing FreeBSD though.
- autoexec 6mo ago
  I wouldn't trust their firmware/hardware anymore than I would their software. I wouldn't encourage them as a company either.
  - broken-kebab 6mo ago
    Trust is undef unless assessed within a context. We have zero reasons to trust more or less any vendor's firmware/hardware because they are unauditable. But from experience we can say it works most of the time and there's no discernible difference between Lenovo, Dell, or Apple
bigyabai 6mo ago
I hope it pays well, those Windows users are subsidizing some great hardware.

MisterTea 6mo ago

Love the Thinkpad line. It's kinda the hackers laptop of choice. > X220/X230 These are pretty solid with dual batteries. Also popular for OpenBSD and 9front, the latter of which I run on an x230 (it stopped charging the removable battery :-/) You can get about 2 hours off the internal and 6~8 with a big fat removable battery, maybe more if the OS and drivers can properly throttle hardware power settings. I have an X1 carbon 5th gen and it's quite light but not useful for 9front without some Ethernet driver tweaking (likely some phy bits need twiddling.) Instead I tossed Debian on it and run 9front in a VM if I need a local CPU. So far it just seems to work including Ethernet (via a dongle) and WiFi.

eth0up 6mo ago

I just went through T14 Gen 1 hell. I tried to replace a broken LCD and the system just wouldn't boot. I fussed with it so much, the flimsy case cracked and broke in several places. I gave up and decided to use it as a clamshell, but had to keep the broken screen connected to boot. But I couldn't get it to see the external monitor. I fought this for hours. I finally reached my patience threshold and tore the fucking LCD off the case. It hurt the hands a bit but was cathartic. Amazingly, it booted and saw the monitor, magically. I was astonished. With or without the broken screen, it wouldn't boot. But going psycho on it fixed it. Proof in the wholesomeness of violence, maybe not. But... it's not running BSD. It's now my mom's desktop, and it's running Void. Works great, and I love the Ryzen 4700, with 16gb ram and atheros wifi chip. Delicate, but capable of some extremes :)