rjn wrote:
Hi all,
I'm looking into getting a new laptop (I start college in the fall).
In particular, I'm looking for something OpenBSD compatible. I
considering either a Lenovo Thinkpad or the MacBook Pro. From what
I've seen you can only boot the macbook pro if you have windows
installed.
I'm wondering if anybody has experience with the new Lenovo models and
the macbook pro?
Thanks,
RJ
From your most recent post it looks like you've settled on the T43 --
great choice! Nevertheless I'm posting my recent X31-purchase
experiences and thoughts for others who have the same general question.
I recently bought a new laptop to replace an aging TiBook. I've
generally had good luck with Powerbooks but wanted something that would
work with OpenBSD out of the box. I looked at the Dells, especially the
c400 and c600, the Toshibas but finally decided to get a Thinkpad.
There were several driving factors that drove me to the Thinkpad line.
1) They're near bullet proof. I have a friend who should be a
professional product tester. He drops, folds, spindles and mutilates
every laptop he buys. Only the Powerbooks and Thinkpads can keep up
with him. 2) Best warranty bar none. IBM/Lenovo build excellent
products and back them with fantastic warranties. 3) Warranty support.
IBM/Lenovo warranties are tied to the laptop. You can buy or sell a
Thinkpad and not worry about transferring the warranty. Whoever own the
laptop has only to pick up the phone and make a call. Better, all new
Lenovo's come with a 3-year standard warranty. It's not the
top-of-the-line, next-business-day warranty, but the upgrade is not
expensive. 4) They're shockingly light across the whole Thinkpad range,
from a low of about 2.8 lbs to 5.5 lbs (though that can easily be pushed
way up with add ons). 5) Businesses by tons of them and after 2 - 4
years "dispose" of them. Check ebay and wonder at the number of used
Thinkpads with anywhere from 6 - 12 months warranty typically left (I've
seen even longer).
I wanted small and light primarily, Pentium 4m/Centrino with built-in
wifi, gigabit ethernet and the option to add bluetooth (for when it's
supported). Initially I narrowed my choices down to a new or used X41
(non-tablet) or the X40. My backup choices were the T43 and the T60s.
Very late in the game I found out about the X30 and from there found the
X31. What a revelation. Small and light (12" and ~3.2 lbs without
extras), gigE (most but not all models), built-in wifi ranging from
802.11b to 802.11 a/b/g and of course bluetooth. Even better, they go
for between ~US$400 (no cd/dvd add-on) to ~US$1000 (everything, often
including an extra battery) and frequently have some warranty left on
them. Best - 2.5" hard drive. I've used laptops with 4200 rpm hard
drives and have not been happy with the performance. I imagine the
X40/41 1.8" 4200 rpm drives perform better than the old 2.5" 4200 rpm
drives of the past due to large caches but nothing like a 5400 or 7200
rpm drive. That's not to mention that the 1.8" drives just won't scale
as fast in storage density, though for me that's just not a big deal.
This is a *portable*, not a desktop replacement.
I found a pretty good deal on ebay. I got an X31 with a 1.6 ghz Pentium
4m, 512 MB ram, USB 2.0, firewire, pc-card and pcmcia slots, crappy 40
MB 4200 drive (promptly replaced), internal modem, power adapter and
battery that still fully charges and runs for hours, 802.11b wifi
(upgrade, here I come) and an IBM next-business-day warranty good until
February of next year. I got it for US$611. The screen is perfect; the
keyboard shows no wear -- even the spacebar -- all key labels are clean
and new looking; the screen hinges are as tight and smooth as if brand
new; the exterior had a few light scratches on the battery/sleep
indicator and some minor scratches/scuffs on the bottom. All in all,
excellent condition.
My initial impressions were and continue to be that this is one nice
laptop. I'm really impressed with the usability of this laptop,
especially for a 12". The keyboard is one of the best I've used even
compared to larger 14" and 15" laptops. I was a bit hesitant to buy a
laptop without a trackpad, thinking I'd hate the "eraser head" but have
changed my mind. I really like it.
Installing OpenBSD (3.8) went pretty quick. Because it's an ultralight,
the X31 doesn't come with an optical drive. The BIOS, though, has
excellent support for booting from USB optical or floppy drives.
OpenBSD booted right up and the install was smooth. The only challenge
was in getting the drive setup correctly so I could hibernate the
system. The online help and man pages got me past that with little
trouble. X works without additional configuration unless you want
anti-aliased fonts. The three mouse buttons map perfectly to their
expected uses. I'm currently using the default fvwm window manager but
may move to one of my preferred (blackbox, ratpoison or xfce4).
Power management is flawless. zzz (apm -s) works without any problems
and apm gives the battery and charging status. I haven't tried to
hibernate but I've read it works. Currently I'm running 3.8. dmesg
shows that almost everything configured. Notable exceptions are
firewire, the Aironet wireless card, and modem. I haven't tried sound
yet. I'll try after I upgrade to 3.9 (yeah, just received my disks).
All in all I can heartily recommend the X31 in particular and the
Thinkpads in general.
--Aaron
