advice for buying a laptop

[Valeri Galtsev]

On Wed, June 8, 2016 2:06 pm, Brandon J. Wandersee wrote:
>
>> Do you think that this machine will work well with FreeBSD on it? Is
>> there some other machine I should take a look at? While looking around,
>> I noticed the T520 and liked it (because I have used it before), but I
>> don't know every model out there and thus I am open to suggestions.
>
> I've been using the T520 as my primary machine for almost five years,
> and love it. As Niklaas said, make sure you get the model that does not
> have Nvidia Optimus; I would add that you should make sure the model(s)
> they have for sale feature the Intel WiFi chip, rather than the stock
> Realtek
> chip. Intel wireless has worked flawlessly for me, while the Realtek
> that originally came with my machine would drop connections at least a
> couple times per day.

With Intel WiFi adapters I would suggest to stay away from latest ones,
specifically 7xxx and 6xxx (like 6205, 7260, etc). They will not work (did
not work for me). They need some modifications to wireless stack, after
which their drivers written for Linux could be adopted/modified for
FreeBSD (as far as I understood the developer who can do/does that from
his post). If I'm wrong here, I really would like to see reference to what
I can do to make one of these WiFi adapters work...

Valeri

>
> If you wish to dual-boot, the machine does allow you to connect multiple
> disks to it---the optical drive can be removed and replaced with an
> Ultrabay adapter for another 2.5-inch disk, and there's an mSATA port
> beneath the keyboard. That would give you a lot more flexibility and
> simplicity, and a lot less hassle, than trying to install two operating
> systems on one disk.
>
> --
>
> ::  Brandon J. Wandersee
> ::  brandon.wandersee at gmail.com
> ::  --------------------------------------------------
> ::  'The best design is as little design as possible.'
> ::  --- Dieter Rams ----------------------------------
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247
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