Best hardware and laptops for FreeBSD? I'll start

K

kriptomahsun

Since there is none, here I'll go.
1)Dell Inspiron 15 7559(2016 era)
CPU: i7 6700HQ
GPU: Nvidia GTX960M
Battery:74Wh
My report:
-UEFI loader:OK works, it doesn't work at all laptop types!
-Battery life:OK is close to Linux, around 5 hours with powerd enabled.
-Touchpad:OK function buttons work well.
-HDMI:OK but no sound over HDMI however.
-Screen backlight controlling:OK
-Audio:OK is clear. Also very loud it can be.
 
dbdemon

Thread 'FreeBSD-friendly laptop recommendations'

I want to buy myself a FreeBSD-friendly laptop, so I'm looking for recommendations.

Times are hard and unfortunately I can't justify anything particularly expensive, so it would probably have to be a slightly older model. Possibly used/refurbished? That's fine, I don't mind.

Some of the specific features I'm looking for:
  1. Suspend & resume must work reliably
  2. Economical use of power i.e. able to scale with workload
  3. Low fan noise, at least with small workloads or when idle
  4. Decent battery life (as good as can be expected for the price)
It doesn't need fantastic performance...
  • Like
Scribner

Thread 'How Do I Find a Laptop Fully Compatible With FreeBSD?'

First off, I am a complete newbie in every possible way. I am not much of a computer person, though I was able to get Ubuntu working, but only because it was so easy.

FreeBSD is a different beast. I have my heart set on getting it to work, but I know it won't be easy. I have another thread in the "Installing and Upgrading" forum if you want to help me there.

I have just learned that getting a FreeBSD laptop isn't as easy as buying whatever laptop you like and installing from a USB drive. I previously wanted a Dell Latitude 3590, but k.jacker graciously pointed out that some of the...
Tracker

Thread 'Used Laptop recommendations for FreeBSD'

Looking to get a second hand/used laptop, current one is 10+ yrs old.

Any recommendations for a newer model that's hopefully supported by FreeBSD (13.x?) to get up and running without much of a hassle ?
- wifi, suspend/resume, external monitor, decent battery, 12 gb+ ram support ... must

Low budget secondary market recommendations with hopefully easier spare parts to find - should it conk off.

Also any tips on what to keep in mind when buying a used machine?

Thinkpad or some other machines ?
 
blackbird9 said:
Thinkpad...
Click to expand...
Everyone says that, but then their price gets skyrocketed. I insistingly won't buy a thinkpad for this reason, f.. Lenovo for their greed.

There must always be alternatives. Now even the shittiest low thinkpad is somewhat expensive here. There are many good brands either way, with good Linux/BSD support.
 
I am strongly in the Thinkpad camp, too. Right now I buy AMD-powered T14 models. The major problem I am facing is that the wifi cards are coded by the BIOS so that you can't put in generic ones.
 
cracauer@ said:
I strongly in the Thinkpad camp, too. Right now I buy AMD-powered T14 models. The major problem I am facing is that the wifi cards are coded by the BIOS so that you can't put in generic ones.
Click to expand...
As I said too much pampering on one brand, will result in extreme prices of that particular brand of laptop. This helps companies becoming a cartel, or a monopoly. Latest Thinkpads suck actually. They are not that Linux/BSD friendly at all. Also soldered RAM's, learned from Apple.
 
I have a couple of Acer laptops (Pentium M and an i3) an HP 840 business laptop (i7) and a Framework 13 Ryzen 7. The two Acers and the HP work well. Each have and small issues but no show stoppers. The Framework ethernet NIC is a USB NIC. The wifi card is PCI attached but unsupported by FreeBSD. The HP's touchpad is overly sensitive but can be toned down a little with some tuning. My favourite ATM is the HP though the Framework is a pretty close second. Updating our mtw(4) driver to support the new chipset is on my list of things to do. I use an rtwn(4) for now, though an alternative could be one of spare ath(4) I have lying around here. But long term I want ot tackle the mtw(4).

The Framework is the beefiest and certainly the most versitle. I use it and the Acer 4752 (ongoing bge(4) work) as development platforms.
 
cracauer@ said:
I am strongly in the Thinkpad camp, too. Right now I buy AMD-powered T14 models. The major problem I am facing is that the wifi cards are coded by the BIOS so that you can't put in generic ones.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the information. I'm facing the same problem. Only a few days ago I tried to replace a unsupported wifi card with a Intel
one in my Lenovo Ideapad Gen 5 AMD Ryzen 7 cpu and graphics.. The notebook was not even looking at the Intel card. Do you have a work around for it or have a link to some further reading? It's such a shame. The Ideapad is very FreeBSD friendly. Everything works including suspend/resume but when it comes to wifi it turns into a nasty (you choose the word).

Important to say, the same wifi card works fine with FreeBSD on a different computer.
 
cracauer@ said:
I am strongly in the Thinkpad camp, too. Right now I buy AMD-powered T14 models. The major problem I am facing is that the wifi cards are coded by the BIOS so that you can't put in generic ones.
Click to expand...

Good morning cracauer,

You mentioned "wifi cards are coded by the BIOS so that you can't put in generic ones".
Does this mean the plan I have below for replacing the card (if needed) will not work?

I've been looking at a ThinkPad T14 Gen 2 14", Ryzen 5, 512 SSD 32GB RAM on Ebay.
From what I could gather, the possible WLAN cards on this laptop could be:
  • a generic Wi-Fi 6 2x2 + Bluetooth 5.1
  • MediaTek MT7921
    • I haven't been able to find much on this as far as consistent success on FreeBSD
  • Realtek RTL8852AE
    • FreeBSD 15.0 supports rtw89 hardware including RTL8852AE-class chips, but posts/reports I have read make it seem this would require more tinkering than the Intel AX200 and may have stability issues.
  • Intel AX200
    • FreeBSD 15.0 hardware notes explicitly list Intel AX200 under supported iwlwifi hardware.
  • Qualcomm QCNFA765.
    • The same as the MediaTek MT7921
I've asked the buyer for more detailed information so I could determine the exact wifi card installed. Then, I figured I would just buy an acceptable replacement regardless.

Lenovo’s service documentation for the T14 Gen 2 shows a removable “Wireless LAN card (for AMD models)”
FreeBSD’s hardware notes distinguish the standard AX200/AX210 family from the CNVi AX201/AX211 family.
I figured I need a standard M.2 2230 Key E card, not an Intel CNVi-only part like AX201/AX211?

I found this replacement that seems to be what I need. Your post has me curious if this will work
WiFi 6E Wireless Card Intel AX210 NGW Bluetooth 5.3 Tri-Band 5400Mbps Network Adapter for Laptop Support Windows 10/11 (64bit) M.2/NGFF


t14_wifi.png
 
mvee said:
Good morning cracauer,

You mentioned "wifi cards are coded by the BIOS so that you can't put in generic ones".
Does this mean the plan I have below for replacing the card (if needed) will not work?

I've been looking at a ThinkPad T14 Gen 2 14", Ryzen 5, 512 SSD 32GB RAM on Ebay.
From what I could gather, the possible WLAN cards on this laptop could be:
  • a generic Wi-Fi 6 2x2 + Bluetooth 5.1
  • MediaTek MT7921
    • I haven't been able to find much on this as far as consistent success on FreeBSD
  • Realtek RTL8852AE
    • FreeBSD 15.0 supports rtw89 hardware including RTL8852AE-class chips, but posts/reports I have read make it seem this would require more tinkering than the Intel AX200 and may have stability issues.
  • Intel AX200
    • FreeBSD 15.0 hardware notes explicitly list Intel AX200 under supported iwlwifi hardware.
  • Qualcomm QCNFA765.
    • The same as the MediaTek MT7921
I've asked the buyer for more detailed information so I could determine the exact wifi card installed. Then, I figured I would just buy an acceptable replacement regardless.

Lenovo’s service documentation for the T14 Gen 2 shows a removable “Wireless LAN card (for AMD models)”
FreeBSD’s hardware notes distinguish the standard AX200/AX210 family from the CNVi AX201/AX211 family.
I figured I need a standard M.2 2230 Key E card, not an Intel CNVi-only part like AX201/AX211?

I found this replacement that seems to be what I need. Your post has me curious if this will work
WiFi 6E Wireless Card Intel AX210 NGW Bluetooth 5.3 Tri-Band 5400Mbps Network Adapter for Laptop Support Windows 10/11 (64bit) M.2/NGFF


View attachment 25802
Click to expand...

It is hard to predict. My Thinkpad with a junk card had it locked, but I don't know about the others.
 
blackbird9 said:
Thinkpad...
Click to expand...
Meh, every Thinkpad I had was a PITA with BIOS flashing :p (EC can't be updated outside of combined official firmware flashing; Lenovo only provides some odd iso for flashing off-Windows; wifi card locks forcing the need for BIOS stuff)

Dell's been the best for me, and I've done fun stuff with the BIOS for Latitude 5591 :D (me_cleaner, chip/EC/XHCI firmware complete downgrade from 2025 latest to launch-2018 before laptop MFG, no BIOS locks for AMI unlocked menus so I get full overclocking/XTU from BIOS and undervolting every OS along with CFG lock disable for macOS, and free-reign CNVio config)

Closest I got from a T500 and X230 was having to flash Coreboot, and that EC stuff and chip locations were fun :p (Lenovo intentionally has some weird double-chip thing and has it on the opposite side of the board under glued plastic covering needing complete disassembly)

Oh, and Lenovo has no way of flashing without a battery! (was a hassle with having to update EC before chip-flashing Coreboot; Lenovo not releasing plain BIOS images means I couldn't just flash the image to a chip on-top of the dual chip thing with ME). My 5591 and an Alienware were easy through the built-in BIOS flasher from boot menu/F12 and a /forceit flag :p
 
cracauer@ said:
It is hard to predict. My Thinkpad with a junk card had it locked, but I don't know about the others.
Click to expand...
I think the middleton bios unlocks the adapter whitelist, if there is one for your model. I've used middleton on X61 / T61 (and earlier models) with no problems. On later machines, the wifi card that was installed worked fine with freebsd. I think on the X220 middleton gives you lots of bios tweaking options, but I haven't bothered installing it yet.

Middleton's BIOS - ThinkWiki

www.thinkwiki.org www.thinkwiki.org
 
I've run freebsd on a bunch of different thinkpads, most recently a T490. I like the X220 a lot. Yes some prices have got a bit strong recently, I think a lot of people use them to run linux too, which has increased the popularity. Even so, there are still some bargains around... I recently got a mint X220 with 16GB RAM for 78 GBP incl. postage, which isn't bad, that's $103 US, delivered. Yes you used to be able to pick them up them for 50 quid before they got more popular, but it's not going to break the bank. You do have to shop around a bit to get a good one at the right price. And remember, we are living in RAMageddon!

Of course an X220 probably isn't going to cut it if you're doing a lot of more modern development work and you need 64GB ram...
 
Espionage724 said:
Meh, every Thinkpad I had was a PITA with BIOS flashing :p (EC can't be updated outside of combined official firmware flashing; Lenovo only provides some odd iso for flashing off-Windows; wifi card locks forcing the need for BIOS stuff)

Dell's been the best for me, and I've done fun stuff with the BIOS for Latitude 5591 :D (me_cleaner, chip/EC/XHCI firmware complete downgrade from 2025 latest to launch-2018 before laptop MFG, no BIOS locks for AMI unlocked menus so I get full overclocking/XTU from BIOS and undervolting every OS along with CFG lock disable for macOS, and free-reign CNVio config)

Closest I got from a T500 and X230 was having to flash Coreboot, and that EC stuff and chip locations were fun :p (Lenovo intentionally has some weird double-chip thing and has it on the opposite side of the board under glued plastic covering needing complete disassembly)

Oh, and Lenovo has no way of flashing without a battery! (was a hassle with having to update EC before chip-flashing Coreboot; Lenovo not releasing plain BIOS images means I couldn't just flash the image to a chip on-top of the dual chip thing with ME). My 5591 and an Alienware were easy through the built-in BIOS flasher from boot menu/F12 and a /forceit flag :p
Click to expand...
Sure, if you want to do all that kind of stuff, maybe some others are better. I just run with the stock bios nowadays.
 
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