The PERFECT Laptop for FreeBSD

L

lcsavb

Hey,

I want to make a suggestion.

What do you think if the project's main developers approach a Laptop company (maybe Tuxedo, Framework, System76, etc.) to build the PERFECT laptop for FreeBSD, in which everything works out of the box? Even at purchase, it can be an option for the OS.

I do not think that will cause a lot of trouble since existing hardware can be used instead of developing new drivers.
 
Maybe Framework would be the best option since it's modular.
It's just a question of plugging the compatible parts.
 
SirDice said:
Or just buy a laptop that's known to work. Many people here on the forums use Lenovo laptops.
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Exactly! I've used Acer commodity and HP business laptops with FreeBSD. All worked and all continue to work. I use 15-CURRENT. My first laptop ran 5-STABLE.
 
Yep, but I suggest a paradigm shift that you could call only aesthetic: the option to choose FreeBSD as the pre-installed OS directly on the seller's website.

See, humans are lazy. I'll make a comparison: whereas installing Arch Linux is great for learning its inner workings, after a couple of times, it becomes cumbersome. That's why I use Endeavour.

Is it possible to buy a laptop that perfectly works with FreeBSD? Sure, but one has to search for it on the Internet and ensure, for example, that the Wi-Fi card is from manufacturer X.

Simply opting out of a specific laptop that is officially supported is easier and can lead to curiosity and adoption by a large number of users, significantly lowering the threshold.

That would not make sense if lowering the threshold is not the goal. That's precisely why someone argued at the Arch Linux forums that they won't implement an installer: many new users would come by and stretch the possibilities of community support.
 
cracauer@ said:
Which one has everything working, though? I have many Thinkpads and the best one (that does suspend and resume) still doesn't do all, the microphone doesn't work under FreeBSD.
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Suspend/resume doesn't work great on my HP 840. Neither does it boot in legacy mode -- some kind of read error in loader. But it works perfectly in UEFI mode. Getting the trackpad to work properly required a bit of tweaking. The trackstick worked out of the box and the trackstick buttons, between the trackpad and the keyboard needed tweaking to work in 3-button emulation.

The touchscreen also works (but I disabled that as I find touchscreens are annoying) but for those who want to touch the monitor to manipulate the mouse pointer can fill their boots.

All I did was clone my boot SSD to the new laptop, albeit I had to convert it from MBR to GPT, an easy task. (Been cloning systems since my Solaris days.)

FreeBSD's laptop support isn't perfect but I've been using FreeBSD on laptops for almost two decades. FreeBSD performs much better (faster) than Windows. And it uses less RAM, leaving more for ZFS ARC or whatever else you might need it for.
 
cy@ said:
Suspend/resume doesn't work great on my HP 840. Neither does it boot in legacy mode -- some kind of read error in loader. But it works perfectly in UEFI mode. Getting the trackpad to work properly required a bit of tweaking. The trackstick worked out of the box and the trackstick buttons, between the trackpad and the keyboard needed tweaking to work in 3-button emulation.

The touchscreen also works (but I disabled that as I find touchscreens are annoying) but for those who want to touch the monitor to manipulate the mouse pointer can fill their boots.
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That's my point: it requires tweaking. That is cumbersome.
Leaving that way to make users learn more about managing and configuring the system is a valid standpoint... But certainly, I'd prefer to have all working out of the box.
 
lcsavb said:
That's my point: it requires tweaking. That is cumbersome.
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I hate to break to you, but you're going to need to do some tweaking on any system you install FreeBSD on. Desktops, servers and everything in between. We like FreeBSD because we can and often need to tweak it.

lcsavb said:
But certainly, I'd prefer to have all working out of the box.
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Then FreeBSD simply isn't for you, you're not the target demographic. You might want to have a look at GhostBSD, NomadBSD or HelloSystem.

I feel we're heading towards yet another Why is FreeBSD not (more) like .... thread.
 
lcsavb said:
Is it possible to buy a laptop that perfectly works with FreeBSD? Sure, but one has to search for it on the Internet and ensure, for example, that the Wi-Fi card is from manufacturer X.
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So, why you don't do it?
Let me guess:
lcsavb said:
See, humans are lazy.
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Seriously:
There already is a list Laptops running FreeBSD collecting experiences about FreeBSD on laptops.
I quote the very first sentence:
'To improve FreeBSD support for various laptops, please share your experience with a particular laptop model you use daily or have occasional access to.'
And the very last:
'(last edited 2024-07-27T21:14:09+0000 by AntonShepelev)'
(before anyone thinks this thing was dead/outdated)

My recommendation was:
If all FreeBSD on laptop users were giving their experiences into that list,
way much more would be achieved than to wish for some fancy project may be started by others.

According to what I read here in the forums the top-most concern about laptops with FreeBSD is the WLAN adapter.
The one on mine ain't work neither.

But to me that's no reason to want others start some enterprise on doing mass production on electronics hardware.
'cause I know what it means to use a free-to-use open-source operating system which is done mostly by volunteers, seldom getting noteworthy amounts of money for their work (if even):
You need to check the support for some certain hardware before you buy it.
Or you have to wait for the day may come it will be supported, look for some alternative, workaround, or simply just live with it's not working.

So what I did was I got me a tiny small, short WLAN USB dongle for under ten bucks - voilá, WLAN access for my FreeBSD laptop.
Problem solved.

I've seen websites of companies offer customized laptops.
Simply pick the hardware configuration you like.
The catch:
Minimum order quantity per lot charge are something around 5k or 10k pcs.
(Welcome to the world of electronics mass production.)

I highly doubt the foundation owns that kind of money for such a stunt.
But of course you're free to start you own project - e.g. by crowdfunding?

Personally I wouldn't dare the risk of such a project.
Point is you need to get them all sold.
How many FreeBSD users are there?
How many of them are going to buy your laptop?
Nobody knows.
You may end up sold 2k to most happy customers, and still sitting on 3k.

Furthermore you're within a community no two weeks pass by not someone asking:
'when will FreeBSD have desktop GUI by default?'
To me these are people unsatisfied with the dozens of auto-config turn-key out of the box OS there already are, but simply never got the idea: 'just tailor your individual own. That's exactly what FreeBSD is for, and that's exactly why it's the way it is, such as coming without any desktop GUI by default.'
You wanna hit the market with laptops under that conditions?
Good luck!
I see this will bring only more complaints than satisfaction:
'very nice laptop! BUT... too expensive, could have been done more inexpensible, it's too slow, bad quality, too cheap assembled, battery lasts not long enough...why didn't you chose XYZ adapter for WLAN? The graphics could be better. SSD/monitor/laptop is too big/too small. I don't like its look. Couldn't it be designed more cool? Could have used more/less USB-Ports. No SD-card slot ?!?!! Only two choices on picking the color is too few: black, and red. I'd preferred a mint green one with light blue stripes... - Wouldn't it be better if Gnome was installed by default?'
:p??
 
Nope, GhostBSD doesn't work either out of the box with a lot of hardware. There will be almost always some minor issues. I tried it.

As I said, if the target demographic implies tweaking to make it work with small/stupid features like suspend/resume, it is not for me and a lot of people. And that is okay. But the way I see it, that is completely different from tweaking an nginx server.
 
I don't recall that tweaking ever made a laptop device work that didn't work right away under -current (for me).

Webcam, microphone, suspend-resume, you name it.
 
I understand what the OP is asking. I'd bet if a company came out with a FreeBSD laptop with the same price as all their others, a lot of people here would buy one.

One thing that would be a lot easier, but still requiring a lot of work, would be a web site that would give step-by-step instructions on installing FreeBSD on a specific laptop with a variety of specific desktops. The result being something similar to buying a Windows desktop laptop out of the box.
 
%pupil -sceptical said:
I highly doubt the foundation owns that kind of money for such a stunt.
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I do not think it would require money at all, as it is just a question of choosing the right parts.

cracauer@ said:
I don't recall that tweaking ever made a laptop device work that didn't work right away under -current (for me).

Webcam, microphone, suspend-resume, you name it.
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Yep, that is a risk.

%pupil -sceptical said:
Furthermore you're within a community no two weeks pass by not someone asking:
'when will FreeBSD have desktop GUI by default?'
To me these are people unsatisfied with the dozens of auto-config turn-key out of the box OS there already are, bit simply never got the idea: 'just tailor your individual own. That's exactly what FreeBSD is for, and that's exactly why it's the way it is, such as coming without any desktop GUI by deafult.'
You wann hit the market with laptops under that conditions?
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Well, anyone who asks why FreeBSD does not come with a GUI by default intrinsically does not understand the objectives of the project. My suggestion is not about "hitting the laptop market" in any significant way, but rather about making things easier for those who want to use FreeBSD on their laptops.

My entire suggestion is this: just a computer with all the drivers working out of the box. Nothing more.

As I see it, some here think that this will attract the wrong type of people to FreeBSD. I understand that, and I acknowledge that it is a valid point of view. However, I completely disagree, because laptops are not servers...
 
lcsavb said:
I do not think it would require money at all, as it is just a question of choosing the right parts.
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You still have to design the PCB that fits all those components together. And chips tend not to live "standalone" but typically require a bunch of other electronics to function properly. There's usually some reference design you can follow but you still have to source all the right components and put it all together properly. Then you have to test it, make adjustments, revise the schematics, test again, etc. We're not talking about building a Lego set here.
 
lcsavb said:
anyone who asks why FreeBSD does not come with a GUI by default intrinsically does not understand the objectives of the project. My suggestion is not about "hitting the laptop market" in any significant way,
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You're right. And I got you.
But you also need to think of this will be a point.

lcsavb said:
I do not think it would require money at all, as it is just a question of choosing the right parts.
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I would very much like to see how this is done. Besides of doing the list I linked consequently.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
One thing that would be a lot easier, but still requiring a lot of work, would be a web site that would give step-by-step instructions on installing FreeBSD on a specific laptop with a variety of specific desktops. The result being something similar to buying a Windows desktop laptop out of the box.
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That is a great suggestion, but I think there are already plenty of resources explaining how to install a GUI.

I'd focus on a guide that explains how to get all the drivers working on a specific laptop. That is the part that is tedious to me, especially on a laptop.

If the objective is just to experiment with FreeBSD, it's much easier to just use a virtual machine, or a container or install it on a server.
 
lcsavb said:
I'd focus on a guide that explains how to get all the drivers working on a specific laptop. That is the part that is tedious to me, especially on a laptop.
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For that you need to find/have a laptop first every piece of embedded hardware is supported by FreeBSD.
To find such seems to be one of the core ideas of the wiki list I mentioned.
If one is pointed out, your guide was appreciated for sure, but also many FreeBSD users are capable of doing it on their own.

The point is not not knowing how.
The point is not having the hardware support.

My recommendation was:

1. (As I already said) assist the list to help finding one.
No need to invent the wheel a second time, when joining energys into one project may cause better results than splitting them.

or 2. because of according of what I may presume by all I read about that topic here there is a chance there is no laptop on the market available that is completely, and fully supported by FreeBSD's available software and has no other flaws like being too old, and I'm also with drhowarddrfine (and others): many would buy one.
Why not actually start on something like this?
First thing would be to find the configuration FreeBSD users want.
Can be done within an own thread like 'What does the perfect FreeBSD laptop has to be?'
Collecting ideas. Especially to estimate if it's worth the effort.
Next step could be to find people (with money), or consider a crow funding.
 
%pupil -sceptical said:
1. (As I already said) assist the list to help finding one.
No need to invent the wheel a second time, when joining energys into one project may cause better results than splitting them.
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I'll just let my idea go wild; I don't know if it would work at all. But why not turn things around and make the laptop manufacturer pay for it?

For example, after finding a laptop where all the drivers work correctly, what about reaching out to the company and offering: we'll make this model officially supported by FreeBSD? That would work best especially with companies which already sell Linux laptops.
 
lcsavb said:
For example, after finding a laptop where all the drivers work correctly, what about reaching out to the company and offering: we'll make this model officially supported by FreeBSD? That would work best especially with companies which already sell Linux laptops.
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Such a laptop would be out of production already, with parts availability problems preventing new production.
 
lcsavb said:
make the laptop manufacturer pay for it?
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Right. That's how our world works.
lcsavb said:
That would work best especially with companies which already sell Linux laptops.
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If I remember correctly the first Linux laptops (and desktop computers btw) were made by some enthusiasts starting their own non-profit orga on that topic.
After it was proved there is a market commercial competitors joined that train.
You may start such a project as non profit.
But no company will even think of a product that is not for sure bringing enough revenue.
That does not mean, there will some sold.
It means are there at least guaranteed three or four times the numbers as it needs to get the investment back, and the overall number is large enough it matters in the register.
That's how the world works.

Additionally the market for Linux is way bigger, as for FreeBSD.
I bet some of the laptop producers would ask:'Freewhat?'

You may start some non-profit project on your own.
And you may be successful - I hope and really wish you were.
THEN, and only then some companys may come out with one of their own.
Which will not prove me wrong.
 
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