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Thanks for your detailed response. So what laptop do you use for OpenBSD? I'm running Ubuntu on my main laptop and I tend to search for hardware that's known t

Thanks for your detailed response. So what laptop do you use for OpenBSD? I'm running Ubuntu on my main laptop and I tend to search for hardware that's known to work with it.

yellowapple 11y ago
I'm not the parent commenter, but I personally run OpenBSD on a pretty wide variety of hardware, most recently (among laptops, that is) a PowerBook G4 and a Dell Latitude D830. Most things work out-of-the-box, but there are a few exceptions: * Power management is nonexistent on PowerPC hardware, so I currently have to shut down my PowerBook between uses, since I can't put it in standby. This is annoying, but workable. * Hibernation is buggy on the Latitude. Suspend works fine, though. * Both the PowerBook and the Latitude required the use of fw_update to install nonfree firmware (for the Broadcom-based Airport wireless NIC and the Intel PRO Wireless 3495abg-or-whatever wireless NIC, respectively). Also slightly inconvenient, but - again - still workable. * Some things don't really work on PowerPC, most notably Firewire. A slight bummer, but hopefully this will be resolved someday. From what I understand, IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads are - just like they are with GNU/Linux - among the best laptops to use with OpenBSD; IIRC, a lot of the OpenBSD devs dogfood pretty heavily on them, so they get a bit more attention. I'd avoid anything with Nvidia graphics, whereas AMD/ATI or Intel graphics should be decent.
weland 11y ago
It's an HP 4720s. I didn't buy it on purpose -- it used to be my girlfriend's. When it broke, I gave her my (much tinier) ThinkPad and after I fixed it, we never swapped them back. I think the only thing that doesn't work out of the box is the weird WiFi adapter that has problems even on Windows. I just use a tiny USB adapter. I also have OpenBSD installed on my even older laptop, which is an iBook G3. Power management and wifi don't work there but it is 15 year-old hardware, I don't really care.

Thanks for your detailed response. So what laptop do you use for OpenBSD? I'm running Ubuntu on my main laptop and I tend to search for hardware that's known to work with it.

yellowapple 11y ago

I'm not the parent commenter, but I personally run OpenBSD on a pretty wide variety of hardware, most recently (among laptops, that is) a PowerBook G4 and a Dell Latitude D830. Most things work out-of-the-box, but there are a few exceptions: * Power management is nonexistent on PowerPC hardware, so I currently have to shut down my PowerBook between uses, since I can't put it in standby. This is annoying, but workable. * Hibernation is buggy on the Latitude. Suspend works fine, though. * Both the PowerBook and the Latitude required the use of fw_update to install nonfree firmware (for the Broadcom-based Airport wireless NIC and the Intel PRO Wireless 3495abg-or-whatever wireless NIC, respectively). Also slightly inconvenient, but - again - still workable. * Some things don't really work on PowerPC, most notably Firewire. A slight bummer, but hopefully this will be resolved someday. From what I understand, IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads are - just like they are with GNU/Linux - among the best laptops to use with OpenBSD; IIRC, a lot of the OpenBSD devs dogfood pretty heavily on them, so they get a bit more attention. I'd avoid anything with Nvidia graphics, whereas AMD/ATI or Intel graphics should be decent.

weland 11y ago

It's an HP 4720s. I didn't buy it on purpose -- it used to be my girlfriend's. When it broke, I gave her my (much tinier) ThinkPad and after I fixed it, we never swapped them back. I think the only thing that doesn't work out of the box is the weird WiFi adapter that has problems even on Windows. I just use a tiny USB adapter. I also have OpenBSD installed on my even older laptop, which is an iBook G3. Power management and wifi don't work there but it is 15 year-old hardware, I don't really care.