STeve Andre' wrote:
On 04/15/11 19:03, Paul M wrote:
Hi all,
It's time for a new OpenBSD laptop, and I have a couple of questions.
Note that I dont want to spend money on performance I dont need, but
I do want to spend money on a decent quality machine.
First, finding quality machines in the backwoods where I live is
really hard. The shops seem full of rubbish. Various retailers
suggest either Toshiba or Asus. Does anybody have any comments on
these brands in general? I'll admit to a psychological block against
Toshiba, but I have no idea where it came from, it could be
completely bogus.
Second, One I've found which seems a good fit is the Toshiba
Satellite Pro C650 (with the celeron cpu, not the i3). Anybody using
one of these with OpenBSD?
I stuck a 4.8 release CD in, and the dmesg indicated problems with
these devices (sorry for the vagueness, I was scribbling down stuff
in the store. I can get better info if it's required)-
Intel GM45
Attansic something - 0x2060 - the 10/100 wired ethernet
SMBus
ehci1 timed out waiting for bios
There was also a message at the end that suggested that wd1 was not
available.
Anybody know how things have improved with these devices since 4.8,
and which are showstoppers?
The camera and audio also appeared to have limited or no support, but
I dont care about those.
Thanks for any input
paulm
Definitely use a 4.9-current CD. New things are supported all the
time, so go
with the best version of OpenBSD.
I get hornswoggled all too often in helping folks with their laptops,
and I'm really
saddened with the quality of the hardware, overall. The Lenovo
ThinkPads (NOT
the other brands that Lenovo has) have consistently been the best
laptops out
there, in terms of quality, serviceability, and life-span. The $400
laptop can be
considered a throwaway unit. Few of the "bargin" laptops friends
bought in 2009
are working today.
If you look at the Lenovo site you'll see the T series. A T420i is
$799 with a 1
year warranty. Thats more money than a $499 laptop, but it is likely
to work
several years from now.
--STeve Andre'
I second the Thinkpads.
I recently upgraded from a T22 to a T61 (Core2 Duo, 2.4GHz, 2GB RAM). It
cost me about 400 USD for the like-new laptop, docking station, and a
brand new 8GB SSD (all on Ebay). All I had to do was replace the CPU fan
and install the SSD. I run amd64 -current. All the relevant hardware
works very well. I run cwm(1), xterm, tmux, Gimp, Chromium, Firefox,
Seamonkey-Mail. It's a very fast system, way more computer than I need
and will last me many years, as my T22 did.