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Anyone running FreeBSD

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karotlopj
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Anyone running FreeBSD

#1 Post by karotlopj » Sun Jun 12, 2016 9:05 am

Just wondered if anyone on this forum was running FreeBSD...
My ThinkPad Graveyard:
600 * 2, X220, X61 * 2, T61

ThePowerTool
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Re: Anyone running FreeBSD

#2 Post by ThePowerTool » Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:21 pm

I run FreeNAS (on one box) which is based on FreeBSD.

FYI:

Code: Select all

[root@freenas] ~# sysctl -n kern.osrelease kern.ostype
9.2-RELEASE-p15
FreeBSD
[root@freenas] ~#
ThePowerTool

karotlopj
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Re: Anyone running FreeBSD

#3 Post by karotlopj » Thu Jun 16, 2016 10:00 am

ThePowerTool wrote:I run FreeNAS (on one box) which is based on FreeBSD.

FYI:

Code: Select all

[root@freenas] ~# sysctl -n kern.osrelease kern.ostype
9.2-RELEASE-p15
FreeBSD
[root@freenas] ~#
I guess you are not running FreeNAS on a ThinkPad....

I'm running FreeNAS too, ... as well as pfSense (which is FreeBSD based) and that is running on a ThinkPad.
My ThinkPad Graveyard:
600 * 2, X220, X61 * 2, T61

ThePowerTool
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Re: Anyone running FreeBSD

#4 Post by ThePowerTool » Thu Jun 16, 2016 11:56 pm

Correct!

I ran my test installs of FreeNAS on a ThinkPad. I love using ThinkPads for test boxes.
ThePowerTool

Kilkenny
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Re: Anyone running FreeBSD

#5 Post by Kilkenny » Mon Jun 20, 2016 9:38 am

My main laptop for a while was an X201 running FreeBSD 11-current . I also have run DragonFly BSD on the X201 and X250, but my go-to OS is OpenBSD, which I run on everything in the house, including a few switches and the router.

FreeBSD worked, but a lot of things required tinkering that was getting frustrating. There was no two finger scrolling, sound did not work, and the sound output was not automatically changed to headphones when you plugged them in. The wireless card was a bit iffy as well. I was able to get all of this working except 2 finger scrolling, which I never found a solution to.

DragonFly was better. Many of the same issues remained (it's a fork of FreeBSD after all), but you could plug in headphones and sound output would automatically switch. It ran on the X250 because it supports Broadwell graphics, which FreeBSD currently doesn't.

OpenBSD has none of those problems and is generally much simpler to configure and use. It's by far my favorite OS.
T23, T42, T43p, T60, X201, and T420 all running OpenBSD

dummkopf
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Re: Anyone running FreeBSD

#6 Post by dummkopf » Fri Jul 22, 2016 12:18 pm

I ran FreeBSD on my T23. It was long time ago, obviously. Had no problems, some tinkering was required, as stated above. In 2004 I discovered Gentoo, FreeBSD is now my server choice only.
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
—IBM Chairman Thomas Watson, 1943

arabianights
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Re: Anyone running FreeBSD

#7 Post by arabianights » Sat Oct 01, 2016 11:23 am

i run freebsd on my T60, for the most part it's ok but machine couldn't wake up once sleeps.
Lenovo Thinkpad T60 1.83Ghz/2G RAM/80G HDD
WinXP/freebsd/Debian8 triple boot

ashoka
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Re: Anyone running FreeBSD

#8 Post by ashoka » Sun Dec 18, 2016 9:02 am

I've been running freebsd in my T60. I even used it with ZFS and SSD and it worked just fine.

However the Intel GPU in this laptop works way better with OpenBSD 6.0 and most of the cool stuff works out of the box. Despite of this, FreeBSD 11.0 seems to work better (resume, suspend, USB-after-resuming...) that previous FreeBSD versions. Ah... and FreeBSD seems to detect and interact with TPM.

crux
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Re: Anyone running FreeBSD

#9 Post by crux » Sun Mar 12, 2017 12:53 am

Hi, everybody.

I've used FreeBSD as my OS for over 10 years and if all goes well by this time next week will be the proud owner of a W520 and T61 I just purchased off ebay. The W520 was acquired with the intent of utilizing it for casual gaming but I have every intent of making the T61 a FreeBSD box for use as my everyday machine.

These will be my first Thinkpads but they are revered in the FreeBSD community and I researched them for compatibility before making my decision. The W520 was recommended in the FreeBSD forums and the T61 shows to be compatible in the laptop section of the FreeBSD wiki with these comments:

acpi_ibm seems to work just fine. No issues noted.
volume control buttons control the application with focus; not the global sound mixer
drm2 supports the graphics hardware with hardware OpenGL
middle mouse button seems to not work out of the box
suspend/resume works.

Do not disable "Security -> IO Port Access -> Modem" in BIOS , otherwise it will fail to resume.
Having tpm.ko loaded breaks suspend. TPM doesn't work after resume.
USB power after suspend/resume cycle has been fixed in FreeBSD-11.

https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops/Thinkpad_T61

I don't anticipate any problems at all building FreeBSD on the T61, although the W520 might need Discreet Graphics turned on or off.

The T61 is a 7661-CTO with T7700 2.4Ghz, 3GB RAM, 80GB HD with 9 cell battery running Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit from a private seller. (He states it to be an 86GB drive but may be reading the space left on a 100GB HD after OS install.) It will replace a 10 year old Sony Vaio w/ T2060 1.6Ghz, 2GB RAM and 100GB HD running FreeBSD 11.0-RELEASE-p8 32bit.

I had my heart set on a box with the IBM logo, but when I saw how pristine this machine looked I went with it at $105 US plus shipping. After all, it's what's on the inside that counts, and it will give me a good base machine as far as some modest upgrades are concerned. Right now I plan to build a 32 bit system on it till I upgrade the RAM and HD and then go with the 64 bit version of FreeBSD.

The W520 is a 4276-3JU, 2760QM 2.40 GHz, nVidia Quadro 1000M, 8GB RAM, 500GB HD running Win10 Pro and was going for just under $300. It appears to come from a work environment but the sellers feedback included comments from 2 different people who appeared to have purchased boxen from the same lot extolling their virtues as clean machines.

And while my stated intent on the use of the W520 was for gaming, I'm really more into retro console gaming. The last PC game I bought was Oblivion and I'd like to continue where I left off on that for a while, but in all likelihood the day will come I wipe Win10 and dedicate it to FreeBSD, too. I also have a Gateway NV53A, AMD Phenom II x 3 N830 @ 2.8GHz, ATI Mobile Radeon HD 4250, 4GB RAM and 1TB HD I used briefly for gaming but gave it over to FreeBSD after having to replace the HD.

I'm really excited about getting such quality machines and my birthday is this week so I deserve it. :D I'll be sure to let everyone know how they work out and to provide plenty of pix.

Edit: I found a couple IBM Thinkpad logo stickers on ebay for the T61 so it's all good. :lol:
W520 running OpenBSD 6.2
T43 running OpenBSD 6.2
T61 running FreeBSD 11.1 x's 2
X61 running FreeBSD 11.1
T400 running Solaris 11.3

crux
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Re: Anyone running FreeBSD

#10 Post by crux » Thu Mar 16, 2017 2:04 am

My T61 arrived today, with 2 trojans and a trojan dropper included free of charge. (Windows... :roll: ) It did, however, have better hardware components than he indicated and it's a really clean machine, so I'm very happy with it.

I'm in the process of building FreeBSD 11.0-RELEASE-p8 on it now and will provide screenshots in a day or two. My W520 will be here tomorrow so I'll wait for it to post pix in the appropriate forum.
W520 running OpenBSD 6.2
T43 running OpenBSD 6.2
T61 running FreeBSD 11.1 x's 2
X61 running FreeBSD 11.1
T400 running Solaris 11.3

crux
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Re: Anyone running FreeBSD

#11 Post by crux » Mon Mar 27, 2017 5:02 pm

I've been running FreeBSD 11.0-RELEASE-p8 on my T61 for over a week now. I initially installed the 32bit version but built the 64bit version a couple days ago. I posted screenshots in the appropriate thread.

Both times the build process went smoothly and no different than on my Sony Vaio (32bit) or my Gateway (64bit) laptops, without having to adjust any settings that I normally wouldn't in a new build of my other machines. Sound works through the speakers and switches to the headphones as soon as they are plugged in. I ripped one of my CD's, the CD and files both allow for stereo output.

There was, however, an ACPI issue noted in both versions when I ran dmesg but it did not effect the function of the laptop or OS in any way I could tell:

Code: Select all

codeACPI BIOS Warning (bug): 32/64X length mismatch in FADT/Gpe0Block: 64/32 (20160527/tbfadt-650)
ACPI BIOS Warning (bug): 32/64X length mismatch in FADT/Gpe1Block: 0/32 (20160527/tbfadt-650)
ACPI BIOS Warning (bug): Optional FADT field Gpe1Block has valid Address but zero Length: 0x000000000000102C/0x0 (20160527/tbfadt-679)
ioapic0: Changing APIC ID to 1
ioapic0 <Version 2.0> irqs 0-23 on motherboard
I looked in the BIOS but didn't see anything I could adjust to resolve the issue. I googled it and there were several instances of it happening on FreeBSD and different Linux distros. FreeBSD closed out the ticket as a BIOS problem.

The T61 is a sweet machine and has fast become my favorite box, even over the W520, and I couldn't be happier with it. I didn't know how I'd like the smaller 14" screen but text looks crisp and I really like the smaller footprint.
W520 running OpenBSD 6.2
T43 running OpenBSD 6.2
T61 running FreeBSD 11.1 x's 2
X61 running FreeBSD 11.1
T400 running Solaris 11.3

crux
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Re: Anyone running FreeBSD

#12 Post by crux » Fri Apr 14, 2017 9:32 pm

I posted a screenshot of my new X61 running FreeBSD in that thread. It came with a 160GB HD running Vista Business so while I was waiting for it to arrive I set up BSD on a faster 100GB drive in my T61 and after a few days swapped them out.

I had to make a few desktop app adjustments for the difference in aspect ratio but other than that there was no tweaking done. It doesn't seem to run any hotter than the T61, the right hand side of the palm rest is about the same temp and nowhere near hot to the touch after a few hours. It does have the same BIOS bug warning though.

Windows 10 is going on the shelf too as soon as I get a different HD for my W520...
W520 running OpenBSD 6.2
T43 running OpenBSD 6.2
T61 running FreeBSD 11.1 x's 2
X61 running FreeBSD 11.1
T400 running Solaris 11.3

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