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Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

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Tasurinchi
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Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#1 Post by Tasurinchi » Sun Aug 26, 2018 1:27 pm

As the title says...

I got curious about the above mentioned OS's and was wondering which ThinkPad generation would be good to start playing with them?

I was guessing some older Core2Duo or 1 Core i gen would suits best. To start with I'd like to use hardware that is soported ootb and if I like it, learn the tricks for newer hardware later.

Thanks a lot in advance for any hints! :wink:
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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#2 Post by Dekks » Sun Aug 26, 2018 6:56 pm

For Free/OpenBSD roughly anything that has an ipw2200 intel wifi onward till machines 2 or 3 years old. NetBSD is really a server OS AFAIK.
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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#3 Post by Tasurinchi » Mon Aug 27, 2018 2:26 am

Dekks wrote:
Sun Aug 26, 2018 6:56 pm
For Free/OpenBSD roughly anything that has an ipw2200 intel wifi onward till machines 2 or 3 years old.
That new? I may give it a try in a T420/T420s probably... I was expecting it would be safer on older hardware and was cleaning up my xx00 gen machines...

Thanks for the hint! :thumbs-UP:
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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#4 Post by Dekks » Mon Aug 27, 2018 7:55 am

look up man iwm that covers which of the newer intel wifi chipsets that openBSD covers, but be aware that due to the intel meltdown bug and the subsequent fallout OpenBSD disables hyper-threading by default and that hits performance.

Also there is https://www.openbsd.org/amd64.html
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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#5 Post by Tasurinchi » Mon Aug 27, 2018 1:03 pm

Thanks! I saw the link for downloads, I was only curious which would be the easiest hardware platform.
Dekks wrote:
Mon Aug 27, 2018 7:55 am
... and that hits performance.
Top performance is not relevant for the moment, is just for toying around.
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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#6 Post by zerotetration » Thu Sep 06, 2018 6:36 pm

I find that the T60, X61, T61, R61 machines work perfectly with OpenBSD. I have not tried NetBSD or FreeBSD on them. I may be trying NetBSD someday soon but I am very happy with OpenBSD. Everything works, including suspend to disk, hibernate, Thinklight, sd card slot (if applicable). Extremely stable. Run for weeks at a time without reboot or shutdown (just hibernate or suspend).

In fact I just made a post in the marketplace forum offering these machines with OpenBSD installed and configured for sale. If anybody is interested please PM me. I have been using an X61 with a custom configured GUI you will find no-where else for more than a year. It meets all of my daily computing needs (online use through a browser, image management and manipulation, word processing, printing, remote server management over SSH, and more).

Will only ship to US customers, unless you pay shipping if international, in which case it probably is not worth it for you.

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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#7 Post by crux » Sun Nov 04, 2018 6:54 pm

I prefer FreeBSD as a desktop OS but have Thinkpads running OpenBSD, too.

I really like my FreeBSD based T61 with T7300 @ 2GHz, 4GB RAM and widescreen, but have been using my T400 with P8600 @ 2.40GHz and 8GB RAM exclusively the past few months. I have 2 T61's, both of which I got for approx $50 each delivered.

The best Idea I've had in a while was to turn my FreeBSD based X61 with T7300 @ 2GHz and 4GB RAM into a dedicated .mp3 player. It has a tiny footprint, sits on a table in easy reach of my recliner and does nothing but play beautiful music for me. I never shut it down and it's at 178 days uptime.
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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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#8 Post by axur-delmeria » Mon Nov 05, 2018 2:01 am

crux wrote:
Sun Nov 04, 2018 6:54 pm
The best Idea I've had in a while was to turn my FreeBSD based X61 with T7300 @ 2GHz and 4GB RAM into a dedicated .mp3 player. It has a tiny footprint, sits on a table in easy reach of my recliner and does nothing but play beautiful music for me. I never shut it down and it's at 178 days uptime.
That's a wee bit overkill for an mp3 player. :lol:

And here I am trying to watch 720p videos on an X60F with a Core Solo 1.06GHz. :D

Cheers to our long-lived Thinkpads :thumbs-UP:

One question about BSDs: how's their wifi card support? Some days I feel like trying out non-Linux OSes.
Planned Purchase: T480s i5-8350 FHD Touch
Impulse Buy: Thinkpad not named for safety reasons :lol:
RIP: X220 4291-C91 X61 7676-A24 760XD-U9E :cry:

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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#9 Post by Tasurinchi » Mon Nov 05, 2018 4:49 am

I managed to install FreeBSD in my AFFS modded X201, but I think I somehow screwed something up and Gnome is acting a little bit b!tchy... I probably need to re-install.

Which GUI would you recommend? I tried LXDE but it did not work, (or maybe I did something dumb...)
IBM Convertible 5140/L40SX/220/240/240X/2*340CSE/360PE/365XD/380D/380E/380XD/380Z/390/560E/560X/2*570/2*600/600E/750Cs/755C/760CD/760EL/760XD/770E
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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#10 Post by WarMachine » Wed Nov 28, 2018 3:23 am

Hello,

I've been toying with BSD lately and it seems that XFCE is a good choice (not my preferred desktop environment but it works well on FreeBSD). And if you want to use a display manager, Slim works well too. For now, I have a FreeBSD on my X60t and it runs relatively well, considering it's stuffed with an old 5400 rpm hard drive.

I've also tried FreeBSD on one of my X220 and everything went fine but the laptop suddenly crashed as I was surfing using Firefox (and not the little crash, the laptop shat down without notice). I didn't reinstall FreeBSD on that machine but the latest Debian (9.6.0) and it runs flawlessly (I use LXDE or fluxbox, depending on the mood).

What I like with FreeBSD is the installation process, everything is well recognized, like the Wi-Fi (as I have lots of machines and as I'm running short on network cables, it's nice to install via Wi-Fi :D). OpenBSD is nice too but not as nice as FreeBSD for a desktop OS. I haven't tried NetBSD because I wouldn't need that kind of OS. In the past, I've tried PCBSD (TrueOS nowadays) and it was not bad (with a graphic interface for the installation) but I witnessed some crashes too (on my cherished T60).

From what I read, the documentation of FreeBSD is one of a kind. I didn't need to have a look at it yet, but it's nice to know that you probably can find an answer to almost every question you should have on the OS : https://www.freebsd.org/docs.html. It's important to me, because one of the thing that irritates me with Linux is the documentation (the man pages of Debian are well done though). You find tons of informations, but it's not necessarily for your distro and it may be inadequate. That can be rather annoying for a beginner (fortunately, I'm not a beginner anymore :) ).

W.
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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#11 Post by KentT » Sun Sep 22, 2019 9:12 pm

axur-delmeria wrote:
Mon Nov 05, 2018 2:01 am
crux wrote:
Sun Nov 04, 2018 6:54 pm
The best Idea I've had in a while was to turn my FreeBSD based X61 with T7300 @ 2GHz and 4GB RAM into a dedicated .mp3 player. It has a tiny footprint, sits on a table in easy reach of my recliner and does nothing but play beautiful music for me. I never shut it down and it's at 178 days uptime.
That's a wee bit overkill for an mp3 player. :lol:

And here I am trying to watch 720p videos on an X60F with a Core Solo 1.06GHz. :D

Cheers to our long-lived Thinkpads :thumbs-UP:

One question about BSDs: how's their wifi card support? Some days I feel like trying out non-Linux OSes.
Intel cards are supported very well. Atheros is not supported.

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Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#12 Post by WarMachine » Sat May 08, 2021 1:22 am

Hello,

I've installed FreeBSD on my X200 (vanilla, no Libreboot). I have tried the last version (13.0-RELEASE) but no luck, I could install it without any problems, but I was unable to do the modifications I usually do. So I reinstalled the 12.2-RELEASE and everything went fine. I didn't want to use XFCE (see me previous post just above), so I chose Fluxbox and everything is perfect. The last thing I must do : install and configure Samba, I've tested a bit and no success at this time. But it's not because it's on the X200, it's because I don't know Samba well.

:)

W.
701Cs| 755Cs| 560| 600E| T23| X20| X24| X31| T30| R30| T41p| T42| T43| X41
T60 14.1"| T60 15.4"| T61 14.1″ WS| R60| X60t| X61s| X61t| X301| T400| T400s| W500| X200| X201| T410| T410s| X220| T420| T420s| W520| T430| X240| T440| T440s| T440p| T450s| X250

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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#13 Post by karotlopj » Sun May 16, 2021 7:51 am

WarMachine wrote:
Sat May 08, 2021 1:22 am
Hello,

I've installed FreeBSD on my X200 (vanilla, no Libreboot). I have tried the last version (13.0-RELEASE) but no luck, I could install it without any problems, but I was unable to do the modifications I usually do. So I reinstalled the 12.2-RELEASE and everything went fine. I didn't want to use XFCE (see me previous post just above), so I chose Fluxbox and everything is perfect. The last thing I must do : install and configure Samba, I've tested a bit and no success at this time. But it's not because it's on the X200, it's because I don't know Samba well.

:)

W.
If you are having problems with 13.0-RELEASE I'd suggest asking on the FreeBSD forum - https://forums.freebsd.org/
There's plenty of very helpful and knowledgeable people there. I have FreeBSD running on all my ThinkPads, sometimes just in text mode, but prefer LXDE which is plain and simple for a GUI, although I might start looking at alternative. Used XFCE initially, but it often got in the way of what I was trying to do.

I have an X201 which is running pfSense at the moment.
My ThinkPad Graveyard:
600 * 2, X220, X61 * 2, T61

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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#14 Post by Glitchy » Mon May 17, 2021 5:24 am

Might be too late but im running FreeBSD on Thinkpad X1 Yoga Gen1.
The camera not tested as I just slapped a sticker on it.
mic - not tested as I don't need it.
The touchpad works but I disabled it in bios but needed to disable it through X11 to make sure is disabled as you still can control mouse movement through the touchpad considering it was disabled in bios.
Touch works out of the box but not eat figured out how to work Yoga function to rotate screen automatically.
FingerPrint not tested but it's next to look at.
My screen is 1440p and battery life is up to 4h with about 50% brightness ( capacity is 49970 mWh out of 52060mWh) so it's a bit sad on battery life.
ThinkPad Frankenpad T25 | ThinkPad X1 Yoga | ThinkPad P71 | ThinkPad T440p | ThinkPad X220 | ThinkPad W520 | IBM ThinkPad T61

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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#15 Post by WarMachine » Mon May 17, 2021 9:01 am

karotlopj wrote:
Sun May 16, 2021 7:51 am
WarMachine wrote:
Sat May 08, 2021 1:22 am
Hello,

I've installed FreeBSD on my X200 (vanilla, no Libreboot). I have tried the last version (13.0-RELEASE) but no luck, I could install it without any problems, but I was unable to do the modifications I usually do. So I reinstalled the 12.2-RELEASE and everything went fine. I didn't want to use XFCE (see me previous post just above), so I chose Fluxbox and everything is perfect. The last thing I must do : install and configure Samba, I've tested a bit and no success at this time. But it's not because it's on the X200, it's because I don't know Samba well.

:)

W.
If you are having problems with 13.0-RELEASE I'd suggest asking on the FreeBSD forum - https://forums.freebsd.org/
There's plenty of very helpful and knowledgeable people there. I have FreeBSD running on all my ThinkPads, sometimes just in text mode, but prefer LXDE which is plain and simple for a GUI, although I might start looking at alternative. Used XFCE initially, but it often got in the way of what I was trying to do.

I have an X201 which is running pfSense at the moment.
Hello,

Thank you for the tip ! :) I already have an account on FreeBSD forums. There are too much questions I would ask, I prefer to search for myself. And the 12.2-RELEASE is OK just like I want (Samba must be configured yet but that's all).

:)

W.
701Cs| 755Cs| 560| 600E| T23| X20| X24| X31| T30| R30| T41p| T42| T43| X41
T60 14.1"| T60 15.4"| T61 14.1″ WS| R60| X60t| X61s| X61t| X301| T400| T400s| W500| X200| X201| T410| T410s| X220| T420| T420s| W520| T430| X240| T440| T440s| T440p| T450s| X250

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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#16 Post by HankStarr » Fri Oct 01, 2021 2:55 am

Hi.... I'd go change to some new form of Linux for some time, attempt FreeBSD for some time, and each time I attempted OpenBSD again - OMG it simply works with no work, while the others (other than a kitchen-sink OS like Ubuntu) could never entirely hit the nail on the head.

In any event, for things where super-new Arch Linux would experience difficulty with the equipment, or require heaps of tweaking to get Xorg chipping away at a super-new PC or whatever, simply stick in the OpenBSD CD or USB, hit [Enter] a lot of times for the defaults, and presto! An entirely working base framework, including X11 what not.

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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#17 Post by euless » Fri Jan 21, 2022 3:17 am

HankStarr wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 2:55 am
Hi...each time I attempted OpenBSD again - OMG it simply works with no work, while the others (other than a kitchen-sink OS like Ubuntu) could never entirely hit the nail on the head.
OpenBSD is super stable on my t440p. However, it runs hot all the time. The cpu fan cycles on and off every few minutes, even when nothing is running. My idle temp was average around 52 deg. OpenBSD also doesn't have hardware acceleration, so playing youtube video at higher than 480p resulted in many dropped frames. And Chromium and Firefox both feel slow. And battery drains fast!

Comparatively, Windows-7 runs much much better. Windows-7 is fast and runs cool all the time. Youtube can play at 1080p without frame drop. Firefox feel very fast. Battery last a long time!

My guess is that Lenovo has optimized its Win-7 specifically for t440p hardware. And OpenBSD (and Linux) don't have these optimization.


if I must use a Thinkpad for OpenBSD, I would choose a Thinkpad that has a history of having a cool CPU, like those with low-voltage design.
Last edited by euless on Fri Jan 21, 2022 12:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#18 Post by RealBlackStuff » Fri Jan 21, 2022 6:58 am

When was the last time you refreshed the thermal paste?
If you have only iGPU, get the fan from the dGPU T440p.
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Re: Which ThinkPad gen suits best for Net/Free/OpenBSD?

#19 Post by euless » Fri Jan 21, 2022 12:41 pm

RealBlackStuff wrote:
Fri Jan 21, 2022 6:58 am
When was the last time you refreshed the thermal paste?
If you have only iGPU, get the fan from the dGPU T440p.
Thermal paste is not the problem. I have done Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut last year, twice to be sure. Cleaned the fan. I did see your post about dGPU fan, but it's probably not going to make a huge difference.

The fact it runs so cool under Window 7 but hot under OpenBSD, tells me power management in OpenBSD does not work very well with t440p. This problem seems to be common in OpenBSD with some laptops.

Part of it maybe that OpenBSD disables Hyperthreading. So, the t440p has 4 cores, but OpenBSD allow only 2 cores running.
That could explain why OpenBSD feels more sluggish than Windows and Linux.

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