Small History.

1 year ago I wanted to replace Windows 7 with some Linux on my parents’ old laptop (they don’t use it anymore), but failed. I tried Linux Mint, Debian KDE, Manjaro i3, etc., but only Arch Linux and TUI Debian (and custom Windows 11 installer btw) were able to boot.

In September I started using FreeBSD as main OS on my machine, so I decided to try it also on an old laptop yesterday. Except missing kitty terminal in packages, it works really well: no WIFI issues, no video drivers issues, for an old HDD it boots in 1min 30sec for xfce and 1 min for i3wm (for comparason, it takes 1 min to boot light custom Windows 7), I even can dual boot with Windows 7 on MBR disk and finally it can be l up-to-date working machine (in some extent).

P.S. cute community avatar btw. It’s hard to find anime+BSD pics.

  • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    4·
    9 days ago

    Yoo that’s cool, always a fan of seeing BSDs on older laptops. Maybe make some follow up posts sometime to keep us updated on any quirks/issues you have or discoveries you make from using it.

    • kiri@ani.socialOPEnglish
      2·
      8 days ago

      Well, most issues are related to laptop or XFCE itself, not to FreeBSD. For example I discovered that Helix and Ranger are really heavy programs and it takes about 2-4 seconds to open them, unlike vi. As I mentioned, requirement to build Kitty from ports is the most significant problem for me, cz it would take an eternity.

      It may seem that I’m overstating the FreeBSD in post, so I will try OpenBSD or NetBSD later. If I encounter anything with FreeBSD I will share it next time I suppose. Initially, I was concerned that posts about experiences (or setups or smth) might not be well received, as there weren’t any.