Hi,
Thomas Vetere wrote:
> I was looking to get a laptop to run OpenBSD. The one I am looking at in
> particular is the Thinkpad R51e (2005). I like this particular model
> because it does not come with any extra hardware that OpenBSD does not
> support in the first place (bluetooth, camera, etc.) My main concern is the
> longevity that this model would have going forward. I already have a '94
> Thinkpad that cannot run the latest OpenBSD well because hardware support
> was gradually dropped during code cleanups, etc (i.e. newer versions of X11
> removed support for my ancient graphics chip because it just wasn't worth
> the time to maintain the code). Does anyone know, given the age of that
> model, how many years I might get out of it with OpenBSD and its packaged
> software before hardware support starts to drop? What is a good rule of
> thumb for selecting a machine to run OpenBSD with respect to its age?
hard to speak for "OpenBSD" in general, but seeing the trend, I'd say
you should be served well for a while.
I have several ThinkPad of that vintage (T4x, R5x) and they do run
various opensource OSs very well. The only hardware "support drop" I
have seen across the board is due to video drivers - but these have
either Intel or classic ATI which appears to continue to work quite well.
They are "the best crop" of 32bit Intel Machines.
I have an almost equivalent Toshiba too and recently Stefan fixed even
the internal WiFi card support for it!
Older ones like the classic 600 or T2x series, while having also clearer
memory limitations, have strange video cards and those are an issue now.
Also SSE2 is useful for browsing, video, etc, if needed.
If Intel 32bit support continues for a while, you ThinkPad will remain
useful. Of course don't expect super-heavy browsing! Browsers get more
andmore hungry... But on my R52 (with Linux though) I can use FireFox
and ArcticFox quite well with few tabs and watch full-screen movies too.
What do you want more from such a trusty thing? Enough for a quick web
look up. Then they are fantastic coding machines, remote terminals, etc
due to the nice 4:3 displays with relaxing look and good keyboards.
Infrared ports, fireware and nice stuff, some of these have RS232.
There is only one thing to "avoid as pest": nVidia cards. My experience
is that OpenBSD sucks with them, I got no vintage laptop working. NetBSD
not much better (although it has nouveau inside it didn't work for me).
FreeBSD was nice because it has binary drivers, but with the lastes X11
upgrades they are no longer compatible, so sicne you need also those
"legacy drivers" nVidia did not update, you end up with lots of nice bricks.
ThinkPad T61 might have (as mine has) those as an option and now I don't
know what to do, right now with it. Nice machine - except that it is a
little bit more "lenovo quality" than the R5x and T4x series. I could
switch from FreeBSD to OpenBSD but last time I tried no decent video
support, only the old nv divers which are antique (although theys till
run, but you have almost no acceleration and have other issues with
sleep, etc).
Then, nobody knows what the future will be... especially in software.
Riccardo
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