Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2016 19:02:15 +0200 From: Christian Baer <christian.baer@uni-dortmund.de> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: advice for buying a laptop Message-ID: <njs1mo$tjd$1@ger.gmane.org> In-Reply-To: <5759E44E.1020402@holgerdanske.com> References: <nj9kmu$7r8$1@ger.gmane.org> <57586E36.40509@holgerdanske.com> <njbt5o$pk6$4@ger.gmane.org> <5759E44E.1020402@holgerdanske.com>
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On 06/09/16 23:49, David Christensen wrote: > My comment is based on my experiences with desktops and servers. I > discovered HDD mobile racks years ago, and have not dual booted since. > My laptop has an easily-accessible HDD bay (2 screws), so I use the same > strategy. (Note that laptop HDD bays and connectors are not designed > for frequent drive swapping. Second HDD caddies that fit into the > optical drive bay are usually recommended for this use case.) I have actually never seen any of these caddies in action. But I may quite frequently change from on OS to another which is why I didn't like the concept of changing the HDs. As you stated, they are not made for this kind of wear. > If you're happy with dual-boot, then go for it. Maybe happy isn't the word of choice, but thusfar, it has worked for me. >> May I ask why you went to all the trouble researching the hardware an >> then never bought that laptop your wanted? > I have a Dell Inspiron E1505 that I bought in 2007. Mine came with a > 32-bit processor, and, as best I could tell, they all did. I wanted > 64-bit. So, I started looking for a replacement laptop. STFW I found > out that certain later model 64-bit Core Duo processors were known to > work in that laptop. I bought a Intel Core Duo T7400, installed it, and > it works. Ok, that is a way of doing it, I guess. Could you also enlarge the RAM to really profit from the 64 bit CPU? > I can only infer that the leaders of most for-profit corporations > believe that the best way to monetize their intellectual property > investments is by treating them as trade secrets. "You want to use our > hardware? Sign the NDA, License, and Support agreements, and write a > check." > Even if a company (such as NVIDIA) releases a binary driver that "works" > for their engineers on a given computer (proprietary software and/or > FOSS), getting and keeping the hardware working in the general case > without unencumbered vendor assistance is difficult at best. So what you are saying is that nVidia Chips will work fine with the drivers provided by nVidia but I am at the mercy of them, should they decide to drop the support? > Intel makes it less difficult by releasing reference source code for > some of their hardware. So, more software works on that Intel hardware. AMD is following a similar strategy - if you believe the press releases. Although their opensource drivers have been in the works for a while now (with AMD working on them too), they are still a fair bit away from where nVidia is with their closedsource drivers. I would actually also prefer an open driver, because then older hardware will be supported for much longer and an update of X will usually not break the system (or the driver), however, the drivers for AMD cards were not really ready for production when I bought my last graphics board. > One alternative to the trade secret approach is open-source hardware: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_hardware_projects#Computer_systems Nothing too spectacular in that list. Actually, there isn't even anything really current. :-( > (I'm in the market for an open-source hardware SOHO router that runs > pfSense, if anyone knows of such.) I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. :-) Regards, Chris
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