Laptop recommendations

[mafkees1233]

<rant> I have three laptops and none of them do what I want on openbsd. Two won't suspend and on the other one the wifi isn't supported. HP with a whitelist so you can't replace the wifi </rant>

What's a geek to do...exactly, get a fourth laptop

Any recommendations on a laptop that's fully supported? I know that thinkpads are very popular. I'm looking for a second hand affordable one.

Anybody?

[ibara]

https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi?...ex&fts=OpenBSD

[PapaParrot]

Think pads are popular, but HP is good as well, I have 2 and have never had any problems with the wifi nor suspend.
But, with out any better details about yours, there is not much any one can do to help either.
Even the more popular "Thinkpads", will not work right if OpenBsd is not configured correctly,etc,...
In notice your signature:

Nothing is more boring than a working computer.

But not sure I get the point, sounds like you prefer something that is not working correctly ?
Maybe that is why you just post a rant, and no details or anything , are you bored ?

I have three laptops and none of them do what I want on openbsd.

Can you clarify, ? what exactly is it that you want to be doing, I have not yet found anything I can't do with OpenBsd, on my laptops, or my desktop PC, ... but I suppose there are some things OpenBsd just can not do, all though I have yet to have found any. If we knew more specifically what tasks you want perform, maybe someone can suggest a package or help with a script that does what you need/want.What laptops to recommend also kind of depends on what you want to do with it.
==== edited ======
Also , this thread has many laptops listed, including several HP, [url]http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=1880&page=9]

hitest

My old HP G62 laptop. It has a dual core 2.2 GHz CPU, 4 GB RAM, a 400GB HD. Everything works out of the box on OpenBSD 6.0/amd.

[LeFrettchen]

Well, Thinkpad are very popular with OpenBSD, my W500 works pretty fine

[mafkees1233]

Originally Posted by ibara

https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi?...ex&fts=OpenBSD

That's great, thank you

[mafkees1233]

Originally Posted by GarryR

Think pads are popular, but HP is good as well, I have 2 and have never had any problems with the wifi nor suspend.

The HP G62 has many different configurations. Mine has a wifi card that's unsupported by openbsd. When I tried replacing it with an intel card it refused to boot because it has a whitelist for supported hardware. I tried looking for a modded bios but it's not available.

Originally Posted by GarryR

But, with out any better details about yours, there is not much any one can do to help either.
Even the more popular "Thinkpads", will not work right if OpenBsd is not configured correctly,etc,...

That's very true and I will create a new topic later to see if anyone can help me.
I assumed that if suspend didn't work the hardware was simply not supported.
I did google most of my problems but there is very little or very outdated info

Originally Posted by GarryR

In notice your signature:
But not sure I get the point, sounds like you prefer something that is not working correctly ?

I like tinkering with computers. That's why I like OpenBSD. As soon as a computer does what it needs to do in a, to me, satisfying way I lose interest

Originally Posted by GarryR

Maybe that is why you just post a rant, and no details or anything , are you bored ?

No, I assumed that if suspend didn't work the hardware was simply not supported. But I like openbsd so I was willing to buy hardware that is supported.

Originally Posted by GarryR

Can you clarify, ? what exactly is it that you want to be doing, I have not yet found anything I can't do with OpenBsd, on my laptops, or my desktop PC, ... but I suppose there are some things OpenBsd just can not do, all though I have yet to have found any. If we knew more specifically what tasks you want perform, maybe someone can suggest a package or help with a script that does what you need/want.What laptops to recommend also kind of depends on what you want to do with it.

The laptop has a very easy task. It's in the kitchen and has to play music that's on my server. I know the software I want to use. I need it to be able to suspend so I don't have to boot it and shut it down every time. It's an old laptop and booting takes a while.

[PapaParrot]

Great, thanks , and I saw your new topic, that looks good , sorry I don't have much time at the moment, but any way thanks for responding and posting the details .

[ibara]

Originally Posted by mafkees1233

That's great, thank you

Then make sure to add your own dmesgs to it. dmesgd only works when everyone chips in.

[mefisto]

Greetings all,

like the OP I also need a new laptop. I saw ibara's link to the dmesg, but I am not sure how to read them to determine the laptop's capabilities.

Any help would be appreciated.

Kindest regards,

M

[LeFrettchen]

Well, NYC*BUG is a dmesg database/repository.

You can use it to query the repo about a specific computer model, and if someone already added the dmseg, you can access and read it.
Or you can query all OpenBSD (or FreeBSD, ...) supported computers...

At the end, it will require a bit of work, reading the wanted dmesg to check if everything is supported
But it permits you to avoid bad surprises.

[frcc]

For what its worth my older Lenovo T-430 works fine with OpenBSD

[ibara]

Originally Posted by LeFrettchen

Well, NYC*BUG is a dmesg database/repository.

NYC*BUG is a *BSD User Group
dmesgd is a service we happen to provide that holds a user-submitted and user-searchable collection of real-world dmesg buffers.

[mefisto]

Hi LeFrettchen, ibara,

thank you for the replies. Yes, I understand, what the database show, my question was how do I interpret the dmesg?

Also, what would be the recommended video chip-set - AMD, Intel?

Kindest regards,

M

[ibara]

I just posted my dev machine dmesg: https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi?do=view&id=5016
Let's see how to read this meaningfully.

Originally Posted by dmesgd.nycbug.org

OpenBSD 6.5-current (GENERIC.MP) #39: Mon Jun 17 18:55:30 MDT 2019

This tells us what version of OpenBSD we're using, the name of the kernel, and when it was built.

Originally Posted by dmesgd.nycbug.org

real mem = 12594212864 (12010MB)

How much RAM the machine has. 12 GB on my machine.

Originally Posted by dmesgd.nycbug.org

bios0: Dell Inc. Inspiron 15-7579

What the BIOS identifies the motherboard as. This is almost certainly the line you're looking for. Mine says it is a Dell Inspiron 15-7579, and indeed that is what it is.

Originally Posted by dmesgd.nycbug.org

cpu0: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7500U CPU @ 2.70GHz, 3459.68 MHz, 06-8e-09

Some information about the CPU. I have a Core i7-7500U CPU running at 2.70 GHz. There will be an identical line for each core you have. I also have an identical cpu1 line, since it is a dual-core CPU. Since I have SMT disabled at the BIOS level, the dmesg does not show the HT cores. If I had SMT enabled, I would also have identical cpu2 and cpu3 lines.

Originally Posted by dmesgd.nycbug.org

inteldrm0 at pci0 dev 2 function 0 "Intel HD Graphics 620" rev 0x02

My GPU. It's an Intel. I'm perfectly happy with its performance, though I'll probably get AMD gear next time for reasons having nothing to do with performance.

Originally Posted by dmesgd.nycbug.org

xhci0 at pci0 dev 20 function 0 "Intel 100 Series xHCI" rev 0x21: msi, xHCI 1.0

This machine has USB 3.0 (xHCI 1.0). If the machine says echi0 instead of xhci0, then you only have USB 2.0. It so happens that this particular machine has 2x USB 3.0 Type A and 1x USB 3.0 Type C connectors. You'd have to look at the machine's documentation to ascertain that.

Originally Posted by dmesgd.nycbug.org

sd0 at scsibus1 targ 1 lun 0: <ATA, LITEON CV3-8D512, T891> SCSI3 0/direct fixed naa.5002303100c9b23f
sd0: 488386MB, 512 bytes/sector, 1000215216 sectors, thin

My hard drive. It's a 512 GB M2 SSD made by LiteOn.

Originally Posted by dmesgd.nycbug.org

iwm0 at pci1 dev 0 function 0 "Intel Dual Band Wireless AC 3165" rev 0x79, msi

WiFi card. It's an Intel WiFi card. It's fine.

And that's really all you need to know as a consumer to extract meaningful information out of a dmesg. If you didn't know what a particular device was, you can look it up in section 4 of the manual. For example, if you didn't know that iwm0 was Intel WiFi, you could run

$ man 4 iwm

to get the manual page. See intro(4) for more information.

[albator]

Another interesting information you can get from dmesg posts is how well the hardware is supported by an OpenBSD version.
The words "not configured" tell that there was no driver in the kernel that could be attached.
Make sure, before buying a computer, that this is not something you need.
Example here with efib: https://man.openbsd.org/efifb

Another thing to check, the graphic card if you intend to use X.
Here this is an Intel HD 620 (a GPU): https://man.openbsd.org/intel
For a Radeon, it would have been: https://man.openbsd.org/radeon
In general, OpenBSD works better with Intel chips in this regard.

[e1-531g]

Originally Posted by albator

In general, OpenBSD works better with Intel chips in this regard.

Yes, however security bugs found in Intel CPUs has made some OpenBSD Developers express interest in AMD products, so it may change in future.
However porting large drivers from Linux is time consuming process and AMD's GPU codebase is very, very large. It is still better choice to buy Intel-based laptop for OpenBSD at the moment.

[bsd-keith]

I've had OBSD running on my Acer Aspire One 722 & 532 netbooks, my HP-G62, an old Advent dual core, & nearly all my desktops.

If your built in wifi chip isn't recognized use a USB stick wifi or a USB desktop wifi unit that is supported, it's worked for me on occasions where the inbuilt wifi didn't work.

[hitest]

I'm running OpenBSD 6.5 on an older Thinkpad T410. It works well.

[ibara]

Originally Posted by albator

For a Radeon, it would have been: https://man.openbsd.org/radeon

https://man.openbsd.org/amdgpu

Originally Posted by albator

In general, OpenBSD works better with Intel chips in this regard.

That is not a position I would hold steadfast to.

[e1-531g]

Originally Posted by ibara

https://man.openbsd.org/amdgpu


That is not a position I would hold steadfast to.

I wonder what is the state of other chips usually nowadays integrated with chipset/PCH on AMD-CPU-based laptops? I mean things like integrated audio, ethernet, usb controllers.