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Comment by oneplane | Hacker News Reader

While this is a nice setup in case of a ThinkPad, this doesn't really work out on practically anything else. I get that a lot of the FOSS, or somewhat more specifically, the hardcore users use a ThinkPad, but the rest of the world pretty much doesn't (at least no longer since Lenovo bought IBM's spun-off computer bits). None of this stuff works on the generic MS Surface or Apple Mac stuff you see in 99% of the use cases where people are capable of installing an OS at all.

As nice as mobile support in OpenBSD is, and as nice as this guide is, it's still super niche :(

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https://9to5mac.com/2018/02/12/apple-mac-market-share/

Apple is 10.4% of the current market. Lenovo who you think nobody uses anymore is 20.8% twice as popular as apple. The surface is some fraction of the aprox 11% other.

Remember we all live in bubbles. I couldn't have pulled marketshare out of my rear either I had to look it up.

Perhaps those global numbers are relevant, I don't know. I don't see them (Lenovo) deployed that widely in my work environments (four companies, employed by one, servicing three others) I mostly see Apple, HP and Dell, and the odd Lenovo on-demand. Keep in mind that this is also in environments where docking stations are on the way out, which seems to correlate to certain device choices (I've read a few blogs about that, not sure which ones as it was a few months ago).

Maybe the market share assumes consumer and low-end models?

I couldn't find a breakdown of purely business vs consumer. I would be interested in seeing one if you were aware of one.

Actually, OpenBSD does work on the Microsoft Surface Go, thanks to Joshua Stein's driver work [0]. You're right that many systems will require a more in-depth setup than the ThinkPad in the article (Broadcom wireless and NVIDIA graphics are a challenge in particular), but many laptops work much better than you would expect.

I've had good luck getting it to boot on older Mac hardware; newer systems (especially with the T2 chip) may be harder.

[0]: https://jcs.org/2018/08/31/surface_go

Yeah, but no wifi (no bluetooth and no cameras either).

I know some people consider lack of Bluetooth support a show-stopper, and maybe for some of them it actually is, and is actually worth the downsides of Bluetooth, but I think the practical effect is actually much smaller than one might think. While some needs are only filled by specific products, and those products only come with Bluetooth support for connectivity, most needs people imagine when bringing up lack of native Bluetooth support are easily supported (perhaps even better) with other connectivity options, and Bluetooth really does come with substantial downsides even on platforms that support it.

I, for one, have yet to encounter a "need" for Bluetooth that is not better filled by something other than system-native Bluetooth support, and am happy to avoid the negatives (e.g. security issues) by avoiding Bluetooth-only products. The one case in my life where the only option is Bluetooth is something that that is designed to connect to my Android smartphone, which is not (yet?) ready for OpenBSD anyway.

UVC cameras and USB Wireless cards work.

The cameras and WiFi are probably no UVC or USB in the case mentioned.

Your specific examples are special cases. The Surface is essentially a “Windows 10 machine”, and while Apple permits installation of Windows on Macs, other operating systems are specifically not supported. (And macOS is already BSD-esque anyway.)

These instructions will work fine on any normal, generic, PC laptop.

Unless you're on older unsupported macbooks, I'm not sure I'd run something that wasn't macOS unless under a VM. That's just me. Although, I don't like a lot of the direction, or lack of with macOS.

I'll probably put a new system together around mid next year (leaning Ryzen 2 near release). Will decide on Hackintosh, Linux or BSD at that time. Most likely hackintosh, but who knows. Linux (Elementary and Ubuntu) are finally around where I would want it for a primary desktop.

I was merely stating the general work-machine distribution in my direct and indirect environment. Perhaps they are special cases from the OS standpoint, but from the people point of view, those are the devices they have.

Every time someone posts something about OpenBSD, there is someone who will post how hardware support is a problem.

Maybe, not everything is supported, but on ThinkPad, almost all (if not all) hardware is supported, yes (lots of developers use these machines). However, I've run OpenBSD on very cheap laptops also, with the only thing unsupported usually being the wifi. This is easily solvable by buying a cheap/supported USB dongle for $10 or less.

OTOH, I've tried the most common Linux distro on a ThinkPad last week, and I couldn't even install because of the installer crashing (no, before anyone asks, the integrity was checked and it was OK).

Well, you are pretty much stating the same thing in the inverse way: yes, it works on ThinkPad, but not everyone uses a ThinkPad or wants one.

> However, I've run OpenBSD on very cheap laptops also, with the only thing unsupported usually being the wifi. This is easily solvable by buying a cheap/supported USB dongle for $10 or less.

Are you saying that 10 USD is a show-stopper for you, or did you just not finish reading before you commented?

WiFi works fine on many non-ThinkPad laptops without any USB adapter, by the way. It's mostly Broadcom that causes issues.

As mentioned in TFA, running OpenBSD on mainstream, not-bleeding-edge PC laptops is pretty easy. I've been doing it with such machines (Dell, Compaq, ThinkPad, and most recently HP) for eight years. The last few years especially it has been easier to run OpenBSD than most Linux distros, actually. Hardly niche.

OpenBSD has been the most trouble-free laptop install choice I've ever had the pleasure to enjoy, and the smoothest upgrade experience without reinstalling as well (including upgrades of Windows, MacOS, and DOS).

You'd be surprised how many ThinkPads I see in use in coffee shops. By business people and college students, not even counting the developers.

There are a lot of ThinkPads in the wild.

I suppose it depends on your environment. In coffee shops and non-business-enterprise-y-buildings I mostly see cheap ass Acer, HP and Toshiba models for about 70% of the time, the remainder are Apple, Dell and the odd Surface.

I see more non-ThinkPads than ThinkPads, in coffee shops, in small consultancies, in startups, and in corp teams, but I see more ThinkPads than any other single brand except Macs, and I only see that many Macs because of all the hipster fullstack devs around me on a day to day basis.

We use a lot of new Thinkpad at work, it blows HP/Dell out of the water regarding getting stuff done. (Also great on-site support.)

Soon it's the only laptop model used.

Also I guess it works on the Yoga series which is a good contender to macbook pro for home usage :)

Also X1 Carbon and T4XX series, for light/small laptop types, to say nothing of other X-series ThinkPads. I found a guy on Twitter recently, Roman Zolotarev, who runs a small job board and documents OpenBSD installation, configuration, and so on, for X1 Carbons in excruciating detail -- and apparently the detail is well beyond the needs of the typical install because X1 Carbons are evidently very well supported. My own T4XX is also very well-supported, as are those of other people I know personally who bought ThinkPads in that series for use with FreeBSD and OpenBSD after hearing about my positive experience.

I think most of the enterprises/medium businesses I deal with don't even have contracts with Lenovo at all. Mostly just Dell and HP, and depending on the type of work a lot of Apple too.

My spouse's employer just decided to kill its Dell contract for laptops and go with ThinkPads because Dell's warranty service is so limited/shoddy, and the reason cited is actually a common story. There are more Lenovo enterprise contracts than you think, and those that still use Dell aren't measuring all the costs or are getting very, very special deals.

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