[talk] Biannual BSD on Laptops Thread

[Shawn Webb]

On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 01:01:29PM -0400, Isaac (.ike) Levy wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Now that I finally have both FreeBSD and OpenBSD happily
> sleeping/resuming on my lenovo X230, I'm using it pretty heavily and
> HATE the display.  Terrible for graphics work and frustrating for me to
> use in dim light.  Really great display in a lit room, if you wish
> others not to shoulder surf...   Anyhow, I can't take it any more.
> 
> Next thing, it's 2017, and USBC.  Holy cow, evil all around.
> I'm *sortof* barely learning to live with the lack of Ethernet on
> laptops, but they mostly all seem to be USBC for POWER.
> Whomever thought a DMA wire protocol would be acceptable for POWERING
> your rig, should be taken out and beaten in the public square.  (Can't
> wait until we see USBC/Thunderbolt data-blocking cables hit the street.)
> 
> So, on to the laptops, I've narrowed it down to two (three really),
> choices, and wanted to see if anyone here had words on them:
> 
> - Dell XPS 13, and XPS 15
> I can't believe I'm considering a Dell laptop, but wow these look nice. 
> Breaking with the entire industry, they appear to have deep
> repair/service documentation, with full tear-down instructions for every
> component.
> RAM is soldered on board, (as with most things now), but the HDD is M.2
> standard- which I can totally live with.
> Big negative: USBC is the power port, just like new toy Mac hardware.
> At least it *has* regular USB ports. :)
> 
> - Lenovo X1 Carbon (5th generation?)
> These seem similar to the Dell models, thin and light.
> Big negative: HDD is proprietary variation of M.2 mini-sata thingamabop.
>  This is nearly a deal breaker for me.
> Also negative, the bios/hardware-lock-in for things like wireless cards
> etc... is a PITA.
> Big positive: Power does not appear to be USBC, (I think?)
> Also positive, these appear better supported by at least OpenBSD folks-
> anyone confirming this here?
> 
> - Another Lenovo, X270
> These are still a bit oldschool, ("the pointer nub"), with a newschool
> keyboard (I like).
> Positive: Still onboard ETHERNET!  WHEE!!!!  Also, has both MSATA and
> SATA HDD bays, so like my good old x230, I can have SSD boot media, and
> a cheap/big/slow HDD for a ton of storage without carrying external
> drives.  Been living like this for 2 years and love the combo.
> Also positive, I'm pretty sure more regular *BSD folks will keep using
> this line of machine, so I expect it to be supported quite well
> eventually, (if it's not already).
> Negative: it's still kindof big, and the display isn't as excellent as
> the other two options.  I'm looking for parity/similarity to the Apple
> rigs with retina displays, so, meh...
> 
> Anyone have any thoughts here?  Andy experiences good or bad?

I run HardenedBSD on my Dell Precision 7510, a laptop I absolutely love.
No need for drm-next with the nvidia quadro card in it. I don't really
trust suspend/resume on any OS other than Windows or OSX, so I can't
speak for that. Wireless is working as good as wireless does in FreeBSD
(which isn't well, but getting better).

My configuration:

Dell Precision 7510
64GB ECC RAM
1TB NVMe
1TB SSD
HardenedBSD 12-CURRENT

Thanks,

-- 
Shawn Webb
Cofounder and Security Engineer
HardenedBSD

GPG Key ID:          0x6A84658F52456EEE
GPG Key Fingerprint: 2ABA B6BD EF6A F486 BE89  3D9E 6A84 658F 5245 6EEE
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