Star Labs - StarLite

Well in case anyone cares, I got an answer back from star labs this morning.

"Hi Qryptocracy,

Thank you for contacting Star Labs Systems!

We have tested FreeBSD and found it lacks support for the I2C interface that the trackpad uses so the trackpad doesn't work. The BSD developers have been working on adding support for this, but until they do, the trackpads won't function, unfortunately. "

So that is that.
 
In some ways it might be worthwhile buying one and leaving it in storage until the driver is in place (taking a little bit of a gamble or a usb mouse as a last resort).

Unfortunately if you wait first, by the time it is supported, they probably won't be in production anymore since it is a fairly tiny vendor.
 
It's still a possibility for me. I'm also going through the supported laptop list and seeing a lot of ideapads that appear to have complete compatibility. Used price on those are pretty cheap so we'll see I guess.
 
Qryptocracy said:
It's still a possibility for me. I'm also going through the supported laptop list and seeing a lot of ideapads that appear to have complete compatibility. Used price on those are pretty cheap so we'll see I guess.
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Which model exactly? Looking at recent probe like this, the compatibility isn't that great https://bsd-hardware.info/?probe=66543e9280

Crivens said:
Used HW is better for the environment. These starbooks look yummie, make no mistake, and coreboot sounds great, too. But you get the same punch for half the money and less driver hassle when taking used HW.
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Sadly not anymore. This applied for old laptops. The newly produced models seem to be made to break after warranty. Two new thinkpads (made after 2015) already died on me after few months I bought them in used condition (decent). On top of this all, newly made spare motherboards for lenovo laptops produce all kind of weird issues.

It seems like it's almost impossible to buy these days a new laptop to use FreeBSD on.
 
Mellowlink said:
Sadly not anymore. This applied for old laptops. The newly produced models seem to be made to break after warranty.
Click to expand...
True to an extent but survivors bias and also the Lindy effect start to come into play.

In other words, if you are able to track down a second hand laptop from ebay that is already very old; it means it is generally built well enough to last 5 years and has a good chance of surviving longer.

Whereas if you buy a brand new machine, you have no way of knowing if it can survive those first 5 years or not. It might end up representing all those many laptops that you can't buy second hand on ebay (because they had turned into dust).
 
Hi, I'm very new to BSD. I own a Starlite Mk IV and wanted to try FreeBSD. I tried the NomadBSD 130R LiveCD and the trackpad did not work, even with iichid, but with GhostBSD 22.06.18 I was more lucky as the trackpad did work right away with no further configuration. A more recent kernel I believe.

I also could up the wireless interface and scan wifi networks, but I couldn't connect to one. Also the soundcard was not detected, even with snd_driver loaded. I didn't look further.
 
polcol said:
Hi, I'm very new to BSD. I own a Starlite Mk IV and wanted to try FreeBSD. I tried the NomadBSD 130R LiveCD and the trackpad did not work, even with iichid, but with GhostBSD 22.06.18 I was more lucky as the trackpad did work right away with no further configuration. A more recent kernel I believe.

I also could up the wireless interface and scan wifi networks, but I couldn't connect to one. Also the soundcard was not detected, even with snd_driver loaded. I didn't look further.
Click to expand...
In terms of wi-fi, NetBSD sometimes has better support than FreeBSD in my experience.
So this notebook might work just fine with NetBSD or OpenBSD.

You can also use a wi-fi extender and an ethernet cable if you use the notebook in the same location.
This almost always gives better network performance.
 
Hi, several months later I am back with some news.

Since yesterday I run FreeBSD 14 on this little laptop.

Sound is not working, looks like I would need SOF firmware. I use a USB headset instead.
Trackpad works with tap-to-click enabled, not without it.
Wifi doesn't work with wml or iwlwifi. I use wifibox or a USB ethernet adapter.
Backlight, battery life, no problem.

I haven't tried Bluetooth yet.

Currently posting this message from the Starlite running FreeBSD, Hyprland and Firefox, over WiFi thanks to wifibox.
 
polcol : does 14.1 adds better support ? (sound/wifi)

I am curious to read you regarding your long term feedback from the last 6 months on FreeBSD on this one ?

Thanks
 
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