Laptop support
reddit / BSD

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fragbot2 · 2023-03-06 08:06

I'm considering grabbing a (ideally AARM64 for battery life and
alignment with my cloud VMs) laptop for (Free | Net)BSD usage.  Things
I value:

* accelerated GPU support (this is about eyestrain and battery life
not gaming or video).
* built-in Wifi support is important (an older protocol standard is
adequate) as I hate external cards.
* one monitor with (ideally) USB-C or HDMI is fine.
* 250GB SSD is adequate for storage.
* bluetooth support for external keyboard and mouse.  It's cool if
audio works but I don't really care.
* battery life and reliability (AKA I'd prefer a system w/o fans) are
valued over performance.
* baseline memory size should be adequate.

Recommendations would be appreciated.  As far as I can tell, wifi will
be the place most likely requiring compromises.

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sehnsuchtbsd · 2023-03-06 09:58

A used/refurbished Thinkpad T480 will do the job. For ARM64, Pinebook
Pro has more than decent support on NetBSD, most likely the same
applies to FreeBSD and OpenBSD too.

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benz8574 · 2023-03-06 12:40

The Pinebook Pro might be a bit low-end for what you want but is
relatively cheap, very open and well-supported.

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SlashdotDiggReddit · 2023-03-06 19:48

Really, the Pinebook Pro? I have one sitting around unused. You say it
can run BSD "well"-ish?

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SlashdotDiggReddit · 2023-03-06 19:48

Really, the Pinebook Pro? I have one sitting around unused. You say it
can run BSD "well"-ish?

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deaddodo · 2023-03-06 21:14

[Here’s](https://youtu.be/Zy9FU4BEMOY) a 4y old video of FreeBSD
running on Pinebook. It’s slightly problematic and wifi doesn’t work.
Maybe some of that has changed since.

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kubatyszko · 2023-03-06 23:01

buying a house shouldn't be viewed as an investment and expecting that
the prices \*always\* go up is foolish.

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fragbot2 · 2023-03-07 00:47

Thanks for the financial advice.  I will keep it in mind.

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kubatyszko · 2023-03-07 00:55

Whoa. That’s a first. Reddit has been weird for me lately, so much
that it would roll through two posts whenever I clicked.
But posting my response under an unrelated post is a first…

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sehnsuchtbsd · 2023-03-07 09:20

On NetBSD is reported to work with bwfm(4)

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SlashdotDiggReddit · 2023-03-07 13:15

Wow, thanks. I may have to dust off the old PineBook Pro and see what
I can do.

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mlambie · 2023-03-07 22:45

I figured it was a response to the request for recommendations… but
your recommendation was  well intentioned yet unrelated, as a joke.
Guess not