Suggestions on High-end Laptop for dual-booting with BSD/Windows
reddit / BSD

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr_Uptick · 2017-12-01 13:57

**Prior nix experience:** Archlinux
 

**Dual Booting:** Yes, with Windows
 

**BSD:** OpenBSD or FreeBSD
 

**Goal:** BSD for personal computer and programming/ Windows for music
production and light gaming.
 

**Features:**
Good CPU, higher amount of Ram, good size SSD hard drive,
- for Music Production with various plugins when on Windows)
- Graphics Card not a priority, but hopefully good enough for some
light gaming that aren't extremely grahics intensive when on Windows
 

*Touchscreen:* (would be nice but not a necessity) as I download a lot
of sheetmusic for piano and would love to just use the laptop to
display the sheetmusic and swipe the screen to turn the page ^_^ so I
wouldn't have to get a printer and print everything out.
 

Is something like this even a possibility when it comes to BSD
hardware compatability? Or am I limited to older laptops?

----------------------------------------------------------------------
jaypatelani · 2017-12-01 17:17

Mostly ThinkPad T series will support .. Not sure about touch screen
though..

----------------------------------------------------------------------
floatboth · 2017-12-01 18:10

FreeBSD 12-CURRENT has the wmt(4) driver for all the Windows-
compatible USB HID multi-touch screens. Works great on my X240.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
floatboth · 2017-12-01 18:28

With FreeBSD, you're not limited to old stuff :)

12-CURRENT with drm-next-kmod supports Intel graphics up to and
including Kaby Lake and AMD graphics up to and including Polaris (RX
4xx/5xx). Also nVidia makes their proprietary driver for FreeBSD, but
I don't recommend nVidia.

Avoid dual-GPU (Optimus) laptops.

Make sure to get a laptop with Intel Wi-Fi if you don't want to end up
with a USB Wi-Fi dongle always occupying a port :)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Xerxero · 2017-12-04 12:22

What are my options with dual-gpu like I have with my XPS 15?

----------------------------------------------------------------------
floatboth · 2017-12-04 13:34

You can try just using the intel gpu, it might work fine? Though the
nvidia gpu could eat a lot of power being in uninitialized state…
Better if you can turn it off in the firmware settings, but often that
option isn't there.

Also you can whine about the lack of nouveau @
https://github.com/FreeBSDDesktop/kms-drm/issues :)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr_Uptick · 2017-12-05 12:07

why don't you recommend nvidia?

----------------------------------------------------------------------
floatboth · 2017-12-05 13:30

Their driver is a proprietary blob, they provide zero GPU
documentation, so the open source alternative driver `nouveau` (which
isn't ported to FreeBSD yet btw) is struggling to support new
hardware. (lol, actually they contributed to nouveau for
mobile/embedded stuff, but in terms of desktop GPUs it's been a
complete "screw you" attitude). Oh and the EGLStreams vs GBM stuff (in
the proprietary driver, they don't support the buffer manager API
everyone supports, they have their own).

Also look up their overclocking restrictions and controversial
GameWorks stuff for game developers.

nvidia is an anti-consumer company.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
jantari · 2017-12-24 19:55

Their drivers are proprietary and not as good as AMDs