BSD on Clevo/SagerNP5125

Greetings all,
I want to buy the NP5125 or the 17.3" version and run a BSD on it. I can't see why I would not be able to run a BSD (probably FreeBSD) on the Clevo as the architecture is certainly supported, but thought I would ask to see if anyone has any experience running BSD on a Clevo, especially a newer model.

I have seen a few posts on running Linux, but as BSD is substantially different from Linux (from my limited understanding of their respective kernels and compiling process), I wanted to ask. Most of the posts went nowhere as they were posted in odd places, and not in a Sager/Clevo specific sub-forum.

Thanks in advance for the lack of smart () answers. lol

Cheers!

 

Come on people!! You can't tell me that of all the compu literate people that buy Clevo's you all are running Windows? Any BSD folks out there??

BUMP!!!

 

BSD and Solaris are built on the same architecture correct? They even can share drivers? I know they both can do ZFS or at least I think.

Anyways I have no help for you I have never tried to run either on a laptop

I don't know your circumstances but honestly you would probably be better off running BSD inside of windows on something like VirtualBox or VMware. Just my 2 cents.

 

Solaris and BSD are indeed built on the same architecture. I appreciate the input. Cheers!

 

Again no real help but from what I remember there was a project branched off of OpenSolaris that was working on developing out most of the wireless network cards. You may be able to find a driver for BSD for wireless from there.

Wireless is almost always the hardest to find driver for Solaris I remember.
I bet you will also have trouble finding drivers for any of the extras too like webcam, fingerprint, video.

You are likely not going to be able to use the discrete gpu? From what I understand they simply use it to crunch the processing and then send it to the screen buffer of the embedded one. I doubt highly there is any driver to do this and I doubt highly there ever would be.

If you are experienced in BSD etc though you likely already know this and if you are wanting to install it over windows I have a feeling the extras and discrete gpu dont concern you anyways.

One thing you may need to check into though is to ensure the SATA drive can go into compatibility mode. I don't have mine yet or I would tell you. I also don't know where BSD development is but I kind of have my doubts whether their install environment has ahci drivers installed.

I really can't think of any other reason that you would have any trouble though. You likely are more experienced with system5 than I am, I haven't played with Solaris since Oracle bought Sun.

To come back to my point though, because BSD is usually very minimal from what I know of it and you are installing it on a laptop I will assume you aren't crunching large scale processing or anything super taxing, To get the most use out of this notebook it really is made for windows. Optimus and all, you could find a cheaper notebook without Optimus that would likely fit your BSD needs better and more compatibly. This notebook is more than hardware ready to do VirtualBox/VMware/Enter other virtual machine hosts here.

If you are planning to dualboot this with windows, I would be aware of what a pain windows 7 can be with dualbooting. I tried it and it worked.. but it seemed like every time i turned on that computer there was more and more problems popping up with booting. Might have ust been a bad install I don't know but seemed like a big coincidence at the time.

tl:dr It should work and I found that Solaris has all of the drivers sides wireless for all of the main things... but maybe you would be open to a more productive road than installing BSD on baremetal.

 

I remember that the old CLEVOs had always problem with FreeBSD, I don't know about new models but i still think that it would be the same.

@ Neuntoter :
for your problem of dual booting, i suggest highly to use another booter than the one come with Windows, try to use the booter come with the other OS that you want to dualboot with (For example GRUB for Linux/Windows7 booting)

 

@ Neuntoter:
I was planning on dual booting. I am dual booting Xp and Ubuntu right now. As far as being able to use the discrete GPU, nVidia provides drivers for both Solaris and FreeBSD, in addition to the usual Linux drivers they provide. I actually do not have a lot of experience with BSD. I hate Windows and have had wonderful experience with Linux, but I am always wanting to learn new things and BSD seemed like a logical progression. perhaps I will just stay with Linux and try out Fedora or Gentoo which seems like the closest thing to a Linux/BSD combo. the enhanced security inherent to BSD is appealing and the total customization that is possible. Running from the command line or putting Gnome or KDE on to make it pretty. Cuz that is SOOO important. lol

@pkhetan:
What was the old problem? Was it the BIOS? I have read about some installation issues with some brands' BIOS but there seem to be workarounds. Also BS provides a compatibility layer so that most Linux applications or add-ons work as well as in their native OS, with the exception of some binaries. I guess the only thing to do is just try it and see if it works. If not, back to Linux.
Thanks for all the input you two. I really do appreciate it. i am a relative n00b and lurked for quite some time before posting for fear of asking a stupid question. Then I saw the general helpfulness of everyone and realized the only stupid question is the unasked one.

 

I have never run FreeBSD in Clevo's, but i remember some BSDiers talking about installation problems and hardware recognition for some parts like bluetooth cards and even screens. I don't know if they had done workarounds because i didn't followed up those cases.

I hate suggesting to people something that they didn't ask for instead of answering their question, but in your case i'll, because you told that you are under Linux now. In my opinion, i prefer Linux than FreeBSD, because of GPL. I just can't accept Jesus philosophy of turning the other check if somebody hit your first check. The problem with FreeBSD is its philosophy that any one can take it because it's without license and make it his own copyright. So FreeBSD is coward, it can't defend itself. With Linux the GPL guaranty the freedom of the content but also the conservation of that freedom over distributing.

 

i do agree about the licensing, but I do prefer the way BSD is put together over linux. Very basic and integrated as opposed to the chaos of linux. Not that that chaos is a bad thing. I love my linux, but the releases of BSD are far less bug prone and all the dependencies are automatically synced so that makes updates much easier. I guess i just want to broaden my horizons and learn as much about everything as I can.

 

Sorry I wasn't more direct with my dualboot talk, this was directed at dualbooting a zfs solaris root and windows 7. Solaris has it's own GRUB that is built to work with ZFS. I had nothing but problems when I switched to 7 from XP on a sort of hardware test bed for things.

But for anyone else reading this, yes your advice is spot on with never using the Windows bootloader.

WOW! I had no idea that Optimus has went to the linux/unix world so fast. Unless you meant just for the discrete graphics but in an Optimus system I would like some confirmation that the discrete will still work with out the Optimus system.

Stick with your desire to play with System 5s, I don't hate Windows but there are many things I only trust Solaris to do.
Nothing at all wrong with BSD it is very minimal and very secure, it has some advantages because of ZFS etc over linux.

LOL Yes well sometimes just looking at the command prompt can be pretty boring so some colors are nice.

I played with BSD for an embedded router some and a test for a file server and I found it to be stable.. But for the life of me I can't figure out what BSD either was.

Anyways there is nothing at all wrong with software being completely open... This leads to innovations and the downfall of being overcharged by monopolies. I really wish more people were like BSD in the gaming programming arena. EA would collapse and release the souls of all of those quality developer shops they swallowed would be free and could produce quality games again.

 

@Neuntoter:
I did mean the discrete cards. I will check on the Optimus. I totally spaced on that aspect of the card. totally open source is a godsend. It allows not only the drones that are employed by a company (e.g. EA) but the entire world to work on programs, bug fixes, etc. If all programs were open sourced, imagine how much further along our technology would be. Forgive me, but your line is confusing me...:"But for the life of me I can't figure out what BSD either was."
And yes, I absolutely plan on a GUI. My command line skills are meager at best, but then again that is why I am interested in BSD... Forcing me to learn more. That is what life is all about, is it not? Expanding one's knowledge base and trying new things.

I also think that pkhetan was criticizing the BSD license for the clause that allows people to take code and not give credit and turn it into a closed source program, as long as the code borrowed is revealed. My understanding may be totally off, but I think that is right. Honestly though, I think that a lot of people who take the time to learn and write frameworks, programs, etc and are part of this community will leave it all open. Of course there are exceptions, but from my small exposure so far, it seem slike most are out for the "greater good."

 

Oh, and the reason I hate Windows is that it constantly hangs on me, and has become glacial in its speed. My mom had Vista and that was a nightmare. I have stayed with XP because that was, in my opinion, the most stable version, though even my XP has been subject to numerous hangs and crashes recently, thus my entrance into the world of *nix. So actually I guess I have to say I love Windows! Just like W.C. Fields' old quote: "A woman drove me to drink, and I never had the courtesy to thank her."

And the Nvidia Beta 256 drivers include Optimus for the *nixes

Edit: Optimus is not supported, nor are there any plans for Linux/BSD support from Nvidia.

 

Try Windows 7 the true successor of XP.

Yeah, I understood his direction on licensing however the true issue is closed source period but it is the nature of the beast.

 

I was actually planning on getting Windows 7 for gaming and a *nix for everything else.