Laptop recommendations?
Bastian Rieck
I need to replace my old IBM Thinkpad R50e, which is running FreeBSD
8.2. Currently, my favoured replacement is a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520.
However, I am not sure how well FreeBSD would run on it. Is anyone
using this laptop with FreeBSD? I ran several searches with Google,
of course, but the models described in search results are either
too old or too expensive,
i.e. more than 1000 EUR...
Consequently, I am also interested in other recommendations: If you are
using an affordable laptop (say less than 600 EUR, i.e. 850 USD) with
FreeBSD, please reply. My requirements are actually quite low: I need 3D
acceleration (OpenGL) as I am developing scientific visualization
software and a working WLAN card. Any extra features/hardware supported
would be nice, but it is definitely _not_ a must.
Thanks for your considerations.
Kind regards,
Bastian
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Kevin Oberman
> Dear list,
>
> I need to replace my old IBM Thinkpad R50e, which is running FreeBSD
> 8.2. Currently, my favoured replacement is a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520.
> However, I am not sure how well FreeBSD would run on it. Is anyone
> using this laptop with FreeBSD? I ran several searches with Google,
> of course, but the models described in search results are either
> too old or too expensive,
> i.e. more than 1000 EUR...
>
> Consequently, I am also interested in other recommendations: If you are
> using an affordable laptop (say less than 600 EUR, i.e. 850 USD) with
> FreeBSD, please reply. My requirements are actually quite low: I need 3D
> acceleration (OpenGL) as I am developing scientific visualization
> software and a working WLAN card. Any extra features/hardware supported
> would be nice, but it is definitely _not_ a must.
>
> Thanks for your considerations.
>
> Kind regards,
> Bastian
As far as wireless goes, look out for Lenovo "1x1" wireless. It's a
Realtek card and there is no support for it. The Intel cards
(Centrino) should do OK with IWN. I would be delighted if an Atheros
card would work, but Lenovo locks PCI IDs for wireless, so I suspect
Atheros won't work since Lenovo no longer sells them.
Almost all new systems use the integrated Intel 3000 GPU which won't
work with FreeBSD until GEM/KMS support is available. If you can find
AMD graphics or nVidia graphics OTHER THAN OPTIMUS, you are fine, but
I don't think this will be easy. Lenovo does sell some AMD based
laptops with Redeon graphics and hose might be your best bet.
Good luck! FreeBSD on laptops is a real problem ATM.
--
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer - Retired
E-mail: kob...@gmail.com
David Wolfskill
> Dear list,
>
> I need to replace my old IBM Thinkpad R50e, which is running FreeBSD
> 8.2. Currently, my favoured replacement is a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520.
I rather like the laptop I've been using for the past several months: a
Dell Precision M4400. I track stable/8 & head (in different slices) on
it daily; it normally takes about an hour to take care of both of those.
And it has a 1920x1200 display -- as well as 2 sets of 3 mouse buttons
each (each of which works as expected).
I have found that I sometimes manage to slide the "WiFi disable" switch
to an unwanted setting accidentally, and the power connection slips out
a little too easily, but those are about the worst things I can think of
with respect to the hardware.
Peace,
david
--
David H. Wolfskill da...@catwhisker.org
Depriving a girl or boy of an opportunity for education is evil.
See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key.
Matthias Apitz
> On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 07:34:24PM +0200, Bastian Rieck wrote:
> > Dear list,
> >
> > I need to replace my old IBM Thinkpad R50e, which is running FreeBSD
> > 8.2. Currently, my favoured replacement is a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520.
> > ....
>
> I rather like the laptop I've been using for the past several months: a
> Dell Precision M4400. I track stable/8 & head (in different slices) on
> it daily; it normally takes about an hour to take care of both of those.
I run a bunch of laptops/netbooks, all with some older 8-CURRENT or now
9-CURRENT (head):
Acer Aspire One D250
Fujitsu Siemens Amilo M1437G
Asus EeePC 900
Dell M4400
Ofc, every laptop has its own problem, for example with sound, and needs
special attention (read: finding a solution);
concerning graphic, it's not an FreeBSD issue, but havin support in Xorg
for the chipset;
the best way, if youd dealer allows it, would be to boot the laptop in
question with a recent Knoppix DVD to see in detail what is in the box
and then check the FreeBSD man(4) pages if it is supported;
> And it has a 1920x1200 display -- as well as 2 sets of 3 mouse buttons
> each (each of which works as expected).
>
> I have found that I sometimes manage to slide the "WiFi disable" switch
> to an unwanted setting accidentally, and the power connection slips out
> a little too easily, but those are about the worst things I can think of
> with respect to the hardware.
I have the same problem with the M4400 :-) it's just a bad hardware/case
design;
matthias
--
Matthias Apitz
t +49-89-61308 351 - f +49-89-61308 399 - m +49-170-4527211
e <gu...@unixarea.de> - w http://www.unixarea.de/
Matthias Apitz
> +! for Dells. I'm using a Dell Latitude E6410, which I could configure
> with nvidia graphics (non 'Optimus'). The wireless is a Intel wireless
> 6000 class device, works fine under iwn(4), but I had a spare ath(4)
> mini PCI-e card which I've put in there too, for hostap goodness.
> Interestingly, it has both a mini pci-e and a half height mini pci-e,
> so I have both cards in there atm!
>
> I couldn't get suspend/resume to work, but I only tried closing the
> lid, opening it again and thinking "hmm, that doesnt work".
>
> The builtin webcam works fine with webcamd, and I've had it working in
> skype with few issues.
Hello All,
Please do not forget to insert your working laptop (and the config,
issues etc.) here: http://laptop.bsdgroup.de/freebsd/
and the working webcams should be noted here:
http://wiki.freebsd.org/WebcamCompat
(for this please send me a structured e-mail with your values for the
table; thanks)
HIH
Ian Smith
> El día Saturday, June 25, 2011 a las 11:25:02AM -0700, David Wolfskill escribió:
>
> > On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 07:34:24PM +0200, Bastian Rieck wrote:
> > > Dear list,
> > >
> > > I need to replace my old IBM Thinkpad R50e, which is running FreeBSD
> > > 8.2. Currently, my favoured replacement is a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520.
> > > ....
> >
> > I rather like the laptop I've been using for the past several months: a
> > Dell Precision M4400. I track stable/8 & head (in different slices) on
> > it daily; it normally takes about an hour to take care of both of those.
>
> 9-CURRENT (head):
>
> Acer Aspire One D250
> Fujitsu Siemens Amilo M1437G
> Asus EeePC 900
> Dell M4400
How well does suspend/resume work on these? An absolute must for me.
My Thinkpad T23s always resumed 100% reliably through 6.x and 7.x, still
does at 7.4-R, but since 8.0-R through to 8.2-R they completely freeze
for an even 60 seconds on resume, after which I often get a bunch of
'time went backwards' errors - sometimes on every process running - so
I've never felt able to really trust it after resuming. Noone seems to
know about that issue; probably no developers have i386 laptops anymore.
> Ofc, every laptop has its own problem, for example with sound, and needs
> special attention (read: finding a solution);
>
> concerning graphic, it's not an FreeBSD issue, but havin support in Xorg
> for the chipset;
>
> the best way, if youd dealer allows it, would be to boot the laptop in
> question with a recent Knoppix DVD to see in detail what is in the box
> and then check the FreeBSD man(4) pages if it is supported;
The PC-BSD 8.2 memstick might be a good option for that sort of testing.
Unlike the FreeBSD memsticks it's a full DVD-sized image on a proper MBR
slice, so you can write eg a verbose dmesg.boot and sysctl -a to another
slice for later evaluation on an 8GB+ stick, from the fixit boot.
Guess I should try booting it on my daughter's EeePC, 1050 as I recall.
> > And it has a 1920x1200 display -- as well as 2 sets of 3 mouse buttons
> > each (each of which works as expected).
> >
> > I have found that I sometimes manage to slide the "WiFi disable" switch
> > to an unwanted setting accidentally, and the power connection slips out
> > a little too easily, but those are about the worst things I can think of
> > with respect to the hardware.
>
> I have the same problem with the M4400 :-) it's just a bad hardware/case
> design;
I suppose that's not a problem as long as it then behaves ok on battery.
I've never much fancied Dells but with the demise of 'proper' IBM/Lenovo
laptops, I'm trying to keep an open mind to others. How's that Fujitsu?
cheers, Ian
Matthias Apitz
> On Sat, 25 Jun 2011 21:17:08 +0200, Matthias Apitz wrote:
> >
> > I run a bunch of laptops/netbooks, all with some older 8-CURRENT or now
> > 9-CURRENT (head):
> >
> > Acer Aspire One D250
> > Fujitsu Siemens Amilo M1437G
> > Asus EeePC 900
> > Dell M4400
>
> How well does suspend/resume work on these? An absolute must for me.
I don't use suspend/resume, can't say anything about;
> > the best way, if youd dealer allows it, would be to boot the laptop in
> > question with a recent Knoppix DVD to see in detail what is in the box
> > and then check the FreeBSD man(4) pages if it is supported;
>
> The PC-BSD 8.2 memstick might be a good option for that sort of testing.
> Unlike the FreeBSD memsticks it's a full DVD-sized image on a proper MBR
> slice, so you can write eg a verbose dmesg.boot and sysctl -a to another
> slice for later evaluation on an 8GB+ stick, from the fixit boot.
Knoppix (a Linux derivate) works better to detect hardware; ofc you can
put it as well on an USB key;
> I suppose that's not a problem as long as it then behaves ok on battery.
> I've never much fancied Dells but with the demise of 'proper' IBM/Lenovo
> laptops, I'm trying to keep an open mind to others. How's that Fujitsu?
It's outdated (from 2006) but works very well;
Bengt Ahlgren
> On Sat, 25 Jun 2011 21:17:08 +0200, Matthias Apitz wrote:
> > El día Saturday, June 25, 2011 a las 11:25:02AM -0700, David Wolfskill escribió:
> >
> > > On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 07:34:24PM +0200, Bastian Rieck wrote:
> > > > Dear list,
> > > >
> > > > I need to replace my old IBM Thinkpad R50e, which is running FreeBSD
> > > > 8.2. Currently, my favoured replacement is a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520.
> > > > ....
> > >
> > > I rather like the laptop I've been using for the past several months: a
> > > Dell Precision M4400. I track stable/8 & head (in different slices) on
> > > it daily; it normally takes about an hour to take care of both of those.
> >
> > I run a bunch of laptops/netbooks, all with some older 8-CURRENT or now
> > 9-CURRENT (head):
> >
> > Acer Aspire One D250
> > Fujitsu Siemens Amilo M1437G
> > Asus EeePC 900
> > Dell M4400
>
> How well does suspend/resume work on these? An absolute must for me.
>
> My Thinkpad T23s always resumed 100% reliably through 6.x and 7.x, still
> does at 7.4-R, but since 8.0-R through to 8.2-R they completely freeze
> for an even 60 seconds on resume, after which I often get a bunch of
> 'time went backwards' errors - sometimes on every process running - so
> I've never felt able to really trust it after resuming. Noone seems to
> know about that issue; probably no developers have i386 laptops anymore.
Me too for a Thinkpad X40 (running 8.2-R). I tracked down the stall on
resume to uhci.ko. Without that module loaded, there was no stall.
Other usb modules did not make any difference. I unfortunately did not
have time to investigate it further. My laptop comes to life reliably
after the stall.
Bengt
Ian Smith
> El d�a Sunday, June 26, 2011 a las 05:36:27PM +1000, Ian Smith escribi�:
>
> > On Sat, 25 Jun 2011 21:17:08 +0200, Matthias Apitz wrote:
> > >
> > > I run a bunch of laptops/netbooks, all with some older 8-CURRENT or now
> > > 9-CURRENT (head):
> > >
> > > Acer Aspire One D250
> > > Fujitsu Siemens Amilo M1437G
> > > Asus EeePC 900
> > > Dell M4400
> >
> > How well does suspend/resume work on these? An absolute must for me.
>
> I don't use suspend/resume, can't say anything about;
Ok thanks.
> > > the best way, if youd dealer allows it, would be to boot the laptop in
> > > question with a recent Knoppix DVD to see in detail what is in the box
> > > and then check the FreeBSD man(4) pages if it is supported;
> >
> > The PC-BSD 8.2 memstick might be a good option for that sort of testing.
> > Unlike the FreeBSD memsticks it's a full DVD-sized image on a proper MBR
> > slice, so you can write eg a verbose dmesg.boot and sysctl -a to another
> > slice for later evaluation on an 8GB+ stick, from the fixit boot.
>
> Knoppix (a Linux derivate) works better to detect hardware; ofc you can
> put it as well on an USB key;
Indeed. An advantage of (also) booting FreeBSD is seeing how it does,
though most laptops are probably going to need some tweaking or other.
> > I suppose that's not a problem as long as it then behaves ok on battery.
> > I've never much fancied Dells but with the demise of 'proper' IBM/Lenovo
> > laptops, I'm trying to keep an open mind to others. How's that Fujitsu?
>
> It's outdated (from 2006) but works very well;
Ta. The T23s are 2002 vintage and work very well, but sadly no longer
so well on 8.x .. maybe I'll try a 9 snapshot before giving up on them.
cheers, Ian
Bastian Rieck
Kevin Oberman <kob...@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]
> As far as wireless goes, look out for Lenovo "1x1" wireless. It's a
> Realtek card and there is no support for it. The Intel cards
> (Centrino) should do OK with IWN. I would be delighted if an Atheros
> card would work, but Lenovo locks PCI IDs for wireless, so I suspect
> Atheros won't work since Lenovo no longer sells them.
Thanks --- I should be able to find this out from the vendor.
> Almost all new systems use the integrated Intel 3000 GPU which won't
> work with FreeBSD until GEM/KMS support is available. If you can find
> AMD graphics or nVidia graphics OTHER THAN OPTIMUS, you are fine, but
> I don't think this will be easy. Lenovo does sell some AMD based
> laptops with Redeon graphics and hose might be your best bet.
My R50e suffers from the same lack of drivers. Is there a rough guess
when GEM/KMS might be coming to FreeBSD? I recall that the new
`xorg-video-intel` driver has been marked as broken for quite some time.
> Good luck! FreeBSD on laptops is a real problem ATM.
Thanks :-)
Bartosz Fabianowski
> you are fine
Unfortunately, this is no longer true from AMD. Evergreen GPUs have very
rudimentary 2D support only. 3D support is in the drivers but requires
KMS. Although KMS is being worked on, I believe it will be for Intel
GPUs only at first. So 3D support for newer AMD GPUs is a way off still :(.
- Bartosz
Ian Smith
> Ian Smith <smi...@nimnet.asn.au> writes:
[..]
> > How well does suspend/resume work on these? An absolute must for me.
> >
> > My Thinkpad T23s always resumed 100% reliably through 6.x and 7.x, still
> > does at 7.4-R, but since 8.0-R through to 8.2-R they completely freeze
> > for an even 60 seconds on resume, after which I often get a bunch of
> > 'time went backwards' errors - sometimes on every process running - so
> > I've never felt able to really trust it after resuming. Noone seems to
> > know about that issue; probably no developers have i386 laptops anymore.
>
> Me too for a Thinkpad X40 (running 8.2-R). I tracked down the stall on
> resume to uhci.ko. Without that module loaded, there was no stall.
> Other usb modules did not make any difference. I unfortunately did not
> have time to investigate it further. My laptop comes to life reliably
> after the stall.
I'm VERY happy to report that building a kernel from 8.2-R GENERIC only
excluding device uhci (and ohci and ehci that the T23 don't use anyway),
loading uhci at boot, unloading it in rc.suspend and loading it again in
rc.resume does completly fix the 60 second stall problem on my T23.
It doesn't mind if I forget and leave a USB memstick attached through
suspend/resume, though of course it gets confused if a slice was mounted
.. even then, it doesn't panic or require more than umount; mount.
Thanks heaps for this. I'll report back on an old thread in -stable,
find and cc a couple of other people who confirmed the same stall issue,
at least one being on a Thinkpad, T43 I think.
It should help having narrowed this problem down to uhci, maybe a proper
fix can be found before 9.0 is released, but meanwhile I'm just stoked.
cheers, Ian