FreeBSD 13 on ThinkPad T460s | Hacker News Reader

FreeBSD 13 on ThinkPad T460s

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22 pointstodsacerdoti9 comments

When I first started using linux I was a 'tinkerer' on slackware, now over 20 years later I just want a *nix like system that works out of the box, is well supported, and let's me get on with things. I think ubuntu / mint LTS neatly fits this usecase but I'm open to other distributions that come close

If you just want to use your computer, Fedora Silverblue is pleasant and boring to use, and it doesn't break when you upgrade it (which takes 2 clicks and no further questions).

Behind the scenes it's eccentric and doesn't work like other Linux distros, but if you just want to use your computer, you don't care what's behind the scenes.

In particular, if you use the command line a lot, you'll need to become friends with https://containertoolbx.org/. Also, Silverblue's website is crap.

But it's the only distro I know of where I could give it to a non-technical user, say “when there's an update, yes you should install it”, come back 5 years later and expect them to be on a recent version that still receives security fixes. (Ubuntu sometimes asks scary questions during an upgrade.)

I'm in the same boat. I used to spent a ton of time in college tinkering with Slackware on my Thinkpad x200s

Now if I wanted linux, I would just use Linux Mint to have a working, efficient laptop.

I recently installed Slackware 15/Plasma on a Thinkpad. It "works out of the box, is well supported, and lets me get on with things." No tinkering was needed.

Sadly, my T460s died last week. The failure mode is really odd: the screen works for about 1 minute, then goes bonkers (even in the BIOS). I now have a new-to-me T560 that I can use my stash of spare batteries on. I absolutely love the internal + external battery setup of the Thinkpads. Makes it a lot easier to do a long day of field work or be a road warrior. Thankfully they're modular, and I'll probably try to fix the T460s so that I have a spare on hand in an emergency.

This is a really good article. I've enjoyed freebsd on older hardware for since 4.x days.

One of the most satisfyung aspects of FreeBSD (really all the BSDs) is the ability to rebuild the "world". Rebuild as in recompile the entire OS and userland tools. It comes with the installed OS.

Is there even a linux distro that does something similar?

Gentoo or Linux From Scratch

Not sure why I would want to do that though, from a practical standpoint.

I suggest adding

Option "TearFree" "true"

to the Intel video driver configuration.

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