Thinkpad T420 compatibility

nortonham

Does anyone here have experience running any of the 3 major BSD's on a thinkpad t420? I have a spare one that I'm considering putting netbsd on.

Can anyone think of any issues or problems when running net (or another BSD) on the T420?

Thomas-k8la

nortonham
A wee bit late but...
OpenBSD developers eat their dog food and ThinkPads are the mobile rice bowl of choice. The T420 has been the most mentioned on the developers' list.
I have used various ThinkPads (setting up for others) and all worked great at first boot except for Bluetooth (abandoned due to security issues).
My personal laptop is the decades old original ThinkPad E14, still working like new. Great at what I use a laptop for and preserves my "toys" budget.

dressupgeekout

If I'm not mistaken, the T420 is one of the absolute very best supported laptops of them all.

hsw

I ran FreeBSD on a T420s basically until it was too old (I replaced it with a T580). The only real problem was overheating, using embedded graphics helped, but it really needed the heatsink cleaned and fresh thermal paste. The T420s seems difficult to reach and since it also got dropped and the screen was cracked I did not bother. I think the plain T420 may be easier to work on. I think I tried NetBSD on it, but only in text mode, I did also use Ubuntu on the internal drive, with FreeBSD on a 1T HD in a caddy that replace the DVD drive.

boomer3200

Everything works except the Nvidia graphics and automatic switching with the built in Intel graphics that come with the higher end models. You'll want to force usage of the integrated graphics if not using Nvidia drivers that are supported on FreeBSD only.

nia

Don't the graphics work on NetBSD using nouveau? That's kind of surprising, given the overwhelming popularity of this specific hardware among hackers you'd expect nouveau support 😅

boomer3200

nia Indeed! The onboard card in the t420 is an Nvidia Quadro NVS 4200M. For me, the Nvidia option was a non-starter because NV40 power management is listed as non-supported under nouveau and hybrid graphics often mean running multiple x sessions or logging back in to switch cards, so the choice was down to integrated (Intel) or discrete (Nvidia) graphics only. The t420 is pretty much my only machine with an Nvidia card and I'm not sure you see the improved performance making that much of a difference versus the increased power draw over the onboard graphics, so I wasn't going to chase too far to use the card, but I would be interested to know if others got it working well. Open to circling back if I'm missing out on a good thing!

nortonham

Since I started this thread, I'll report back what I've found installing 3 BSD's on a T420. All three work well with some minor differences here and there. OpenBSD is what I'm currently using on it, but that will change many times over since it's not my main machine and I use it to try out other operating systems.

FreeBSD: Everything worked, but required installing/enabling certain packages/services related to intel/thinkapd to make some things work. Bootup was sort of slow (extremely unofficial benchmark). Feels like Free takes a little bit more to become a desktop OS, but I would use it again on another machine.

NetBSD: Couldn't get wifi to work via wpa_supplicant, but I still have no idea why. Plenty of other people seem to be able without issue. Other than that, no problems. Lots of respect for all the work NetBSD developers do.

OpenBSD: after fw_update, wifi works with a simple config in /etc/hostname.iwn0. Everything on on the T420 (trackpad, the volume/mute/mic keys above the keyboard) work out of the box with no config on my part. Suspend/resume works out of the box. Comes with CWM installed so that's a bonus lol. Do have to change some settings in login.conf for desktop usage. Fastest installer for whatever that's worth.

JuvenalUrbino

nortonham Bootup was sort of slow (extremely unofficial benchmark).

See https://wiki.freebsd.org/BootTime

trinity

Perhaps your issue with wpa_supplicant on NetBSD is an error in your configuration? Have you used wpa_supplicant elsewhere successfully? I ask because that was an issue for me on NetBSD my first time using it.

nortonham

trinity

Yes it might have been. But I remember triple checking the config to make sure it was right. Wifi worked on free and open, and free uses wpa_supplicant as well. I made a thread about it a long time ago. I just couldn't get it to work, and I decided to try a different OS on that machine. It's been a while since I tried. That machine is currently running OpenBSD, and for the time being I see no reason switch.

nortonham

JuvenalUrbino

Yes I remember hearing about the work being done with boot times in another forum. It wasn't too bad on my install, just noticeably slower than the other OS's, but I certainly wasn't doing any kind of benchmarking. And that alone wouldn't stop me from using freebsd.

remiliascarlet

In general, ThinkPads and MacBooks/PowerBooks are among the best supported laptops throughout the entire BSD territory.
The newer ones might be a bit troublesome, but there are plenty of BSD users on either of these laptops, so if it doesn't work well now, it probably will tomorrow.

Although not all models are equally supported.
For example, the L-series ThinkPads are a disaster when it comes to support for any Unix-like system, but any X, T, P, or W series ones are as good as guaranteed to work well.

jmcunx

I have NetBSD 10.0 on a T420, no issues. 9.3 has issues with external monitors, 10.0 fixed it. The T420 I have does not have an Nvidia GPU.

Some notes, when sleeping I need to switch to a VT (ctl-alt F2) before closing the lid:
https://gnats.netbsd.org/58052

Under extreme level of load for about 1 hour or more, a load that I doubt many people will reach, artifacts can show up on your X screen:
https://gnats.netbsd.org/58217

Outside of that, no other issues.

Now wireless works fine with NetBSD 10.0 for me on my T420, it uses iwn0. For your issue I think we need more detail.