FreeBSD On Laptops Is Still A Big Challenge But The Slimbook Could Soon Be Running Well

[andyprough]

These projects basically just tinker with Gnome and desktop environments. Hardware support and drivers are purely the work of the upstream FreeBSD OS.

That's an inaccurate assessment.

[kpedersen]

That's what GhostBSD and NomadBSD are for.

These projects basically just tinker with Gnome and desktop environments. Hardware support and drivers are purely the work of the upstream FreeBSD OS.

I had the misfortune of getting one in a ThinkPad X1 Carbon G7, which made it unusable for OpenBSD.

Funnily I was thinking back to the X1 Carbon. I got a Gen 3 which worked very nicely but certainly not all work quite so smoothly. Newer is no longer better in hardware (or software).

[andyprough]

That's what GhostBSD and NomadBSD are for, and they are putting FreeBSD on laptops quite well.

[fazalmajid]

It sounds like the wifi chip that they dumped the author with "for free" is pretty troublesome on most platforms. Rip it out and get something that works . Or ask for the original chip that they actually advertised.

That 9462 chip is in a M.2 format but it's not a standard PCIe adapter, but rather a "Companion RF module" that uses the M.2 physical connector but with different wiring, the digital part being actually in the CPU. In addition, this specific chip is a feeble 1x1 MIMO, unlike the 2x2 9560 (also a CNVi RF companion module). I had the misfortune of getting one in a ThinkPad X1 Carbon G7, which made it unusable for OpenBSD.

[kpedersen]

presumably it should be a lot easier to get FreeBSD to work on them.

In my experience the Thinkpad range and HP business range work very well with FreeBSD. Mostly because their components are fairly stable and don't get replaced randomly. The model advertised is the exact model you get. From what I understand this is actually a fairly difficult thing to achieve in this day and age because the upstream component manufacturers cannot keep up supply of specific product batches.

Nothing is more frustrating than being recommended a laptop on a mailing list only to find out that the older model is vastly superior to the "modern" one that you bought XD

[jacob]

Just thinking, how about the Linux laptops from Dell and HP? Their hardware is better known and more documented so presumably it should be a lot easier to get FreeBSD to work on them.

[kpedersen]

Slimbook upgraded the wireless to an Intel 9560 on my order for free. It gets reported as an AC9462 in lots of tools, but the card has PCI device ID 0x02f0, which means it’s .. well, a 9462 and not clear whether the 9000 or the 22000 series Linux code supports it, and FreeBSD doesn’t recognize it at all.

It sounds like the wifi chip that they dumped the author with "for free" is pretty troublesome on most platforms. Rip it out and get something that works . Or ask for the original chip that they actually advertised.

Other than the fact that this hardware company provides Linux preinstalled, there isn't anything particularly open-source about it. Of course supporting non-windows is certainly a start.

[phoronix]

Phoronix: FreeBSD On Laptops Is Still A Big Challenge But The Slimbook Could Soon Be Running Well

FreeBSD may be running great on servers at the likes of Netflix, but when it comes to running the BSD operating system on laptops it still is largely a giant mess...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FreeBSD-Laptops-2020-Challenge