Recommended laptop for FreeBSD 10.2 Xfce workstation?

[Valeri Galtsev]

On Tue, March 29, 2016 11:35 pm, Felix Friedlander wrote:
>
>> On 30 Mar 2016, at 15:12, David Christensen <dpchrist at holgerdanske.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> freebsd-questions:
>>
>> Thank you for the replies so far.  :-)
>>
>>
>> Is there such a thing as a "reference laptop" that FreeBSD is developed
>> and validated against?
>
> No. At least, not that I’ve ever heard of.
>
> Alternative answer: whatever the developers happen to be using at the time
> :-)
>
>> Failing that, I'm going to lower the bar and ask if there are *any*
>> laptops that meet my basic needs OOTB:
>>
>>    I'm looking for a new or used laptop that is known to work
>>    correctly with FreeBSD 10.2, Xfce, Firefox, Thunderbird, (whatever
>>    free) Office, etc., plus encryption and virtualisation.
>
>
> I think what might be helpful would be a list of what *not* to buy.
> Here’s what I’ve found:
>
> * Broadcom wireless cards are a no-go. (Broadcom Ethernet is fine though.)
> * Stay away from Skylake at the moment if you want maximal hardware
> support. Most issues will probably be fixed over time, but right now
> it’s not quite perfect.
> * Several laptops have EFI implementations known to cause problems - look
> before you buy.
>
> Other than this, FreeBSD has played fairly OK with most laptop hardware
> I’ve tried.
>
> Anyone want to add to this?

To add to "NO-NO" or rather "not yet" list:

Intel 7xxx WiFi (Intel additions to WiFi stack (?) necessary for 7xxx
series didn't make it into FreeBSD yet).

I would also add 6xxx series as "maybe" - it is described as it works, but
I didn't make it work for myself (yet; didn't have much chance to put
effort into that). As far as Intel WiFi is concerned, here is the list of
what is supported:

https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=iwn&apropos=0&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+11-current&arch=default&format=html

Valeri

>
> --
> Felix Friedlander <felixphew0 at gmail.com>
>
>


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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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