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canopic jug [soylentnews.org] writes:

Theologian Dr Corey Stephan has documented his exploration of installing OpenBSD on an old ThinkPad X270 [coreystephan.com]. He has posted his rather thorough personal notes which cover the intial setup, such as power management, performance tweaks, Wi-Fi configuration, audio and video, tracking -current, and getting software from the ports tree. He also goes into a bit of his favored tools and workflow.

It is hard not to cherish the partnership of a slightly older ThinkPad and OpenBSD. The ThinkPad X270 and OpenBSD are both minimalist, robust, and customizable. Specifically, the ThinkPad is minimalist with regard to features, robust with regard to physical durability, and customizable with regard to hardware repairability and replaceability. OpenBSD is minimalist with regard to code, robust with regard to security, and customizable with regard to every aspect of the system. Further, since a healthy number of OpenBSD’s developers long have used ThinkPads (to the point that I have read some jokes come out of members of their ranks like ‘I may use any kind of laptop that I may like, as long as it is a ThinkPad’), the operating system works brilliantly on the laptop — both with their stock settings.

Overall, installing and configuring OpenBSD -current on the ThinkPad X270 was the simplest minimalist installation of any operating system on any hardware that I ever have done, even simpler than Debian GNU/Linux or my beloved FreeBSD (and much simpler than a proprietary, dysfunctional operating system Windows or MacOS). Was the total setup process easier than, say, that of a GNU/Linux distribution that uses the Calamares installer and comes preconfigured with a huge array of GNU/Linux drivers? Well, no, it was not, but that is not the point. OpenBSD is secure, nimble, and customizable in an elegantly simple way that interoperates smoothly with this small ThinkPad for my mobile academic research and writing. Even in this topsy-turvy era in which other popular desktop operating systems are have many design choices for form over function, OpenBSD comes as a serious, professional product that is ready to let me focus on my work.

Previously:
(2021) Recent and Not So Recent Changes in OpenBSD That Make Life Better [soylentnews.org]
(2020) Using OpenBSD Routing Tables to Segment the Home Network for Privacy [soylentnews.org]
(2018) OpenBSD Chief De Raadt Says No Easy Fix For New Intel CPU Bug [soylentnews.org]
and many others [soylentnews.org].

Original Submission