[talk] The OpenBSD Laptop Thread, again

[Isaac (.ike) Levy]

On Mon, Oct 30, 2017, at 03:54 PM, Richard Thornton wrote:
> Checkout.
> https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Thinkpad-X230-Laptop-Ultraportable/dp/B00L5WMYDS
> 
> On Oct 30, 2017 3:43 PM, "Okan Demirmen" <okan at demirmen.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Oct 30, 2017 at 1:48 PM, Brian Callahan <bcallah at devio.us> wrote:
> >
> >> Hello all --
> >>
> >> It has recently come to my attention that I desperately need a new
> >> laptop. Recently, I made a port of the SNOBOL4 languages (because hey,
> >> there's an implementation being maintained, and I'm sure people can use it)
> >> and as part of the build process, the software runs some benchmarks and
> >> asks you to submit the benchmark output via email. So I did, and come to
> >> find out I had the lowest benchmark numbers ever received from an i386 or
> >> amd64 machine. So yay, I'm the World Record Holder for slowest laptop.
> >> Let's fix that.
> >>
> >> What are your recommendations? I do have some hard requirements: the GPU
> >> needs to support close to the newest OpenGL versions. The one I have now
> >> only does OpenGL 1, and that means some ports I want to finish I can't
> >> because I have no idea if they work or not because the GPU can't display
> >> them!
> >>
> >> Also needs to be cheap, because I'm a broke grad student. CPU power I'm
> >> more meh on. I realize that faster CPU means less time waiting for compiles
> >> but clearly I've gotten along just fine all these years...
> >>
> >> It should also be noted to those who know the laptop personally, yes, I'm
> >> talking about the one with the handle on it. It needs to go.
> >>
> >> Thanks!
> >>
> >> ~Brian
> >>
> >
> > ​Have you considered the x230? - it can be found fairly inexpensively.​

I'd also sortof recommend a used/refurb x230 - the price is right-
except for one thing: IMHO the display really blows.
Dim, not very good resolution, and for better and worse quite
directional viewing (annoys me- but nice on a plane/train/cafe against
shoulder-surfers).  Caveat to that statement, I've been corrupted by
shiny retina displays on work laptops.

Bios: oldschool.
Wifi annoy: proprietary Lenovo, bios won't recognize other cards.  I
used a "USB nub" for some years, until OpenBSD put the drivers into
ports, (and I use FreeBSD now and that works [via binary blob, natch]).

Otherwise, hardware as expected AOK cool.

Here's a dmesg,
http://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi?do=view&id=2812

Best,
.ike