FreeBSD 13 on a 12 year old laptop
               ==================================

 Last edited: $Date: 2021/04/25 15:45:49 $

 My old (2009) HP laptop now runs FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE.

 I  didn't do an upgrade, but I did a fresh install. The reason
 for this was that I now wanted to encrypt the hard  disk.  The
 previous install was on an unencrypted ZFS file system.

 I did choose again for ZFS, but this time encrypted.

 Here are some specs of the laptop:

 - Core 2 Duo CPU L9400 @ 1.86GHz
 - 8 Gb RAM (DDR2, 2 x 4Gb SO-DIMM)
 - 120 Gb SSD
 - 1280x800 LCD 12 inch monitor (4 x 3 aspect ratio)

 The  120 Gb SSD is also not the newest, I bought this used. It
 is probably from around 2014 or 2015.

 The laptop is built around a Intel chip set, so  the  graphics
 controller, audio, Gigabit network interface, Wireless, and so
 on, are all build with Intel chips.

 I   installed   from   the   standard    FreeBSD-13.0-RELEASE-
 amd64-memstick.img   which   went,   of  course,  without  any
 problems.

 I used FreeBSD  before  on  this  laptop,  so  everything  was
 quickly running smoothly.

 I  installed  the  915resolution  package, and added a line to
 /etc/rc.conf:

   kld_list="/boot/modules/i915kms.ko"

 In order to get the sound working properly, I added two  lines
 to /boot/devices.hints:

   hint.hdac.0.cad0.nid18.config="as=1 seq=15"
   hint.hdac.0.cad0.nid22.config="as=1 seq=0"

 I am not sure if this is needed for this processor, but I also
 installed    devcpu-data    and    added    two    lines    to
 /boot/loader.conf:

   cpu_microcode_load="YES"
   cpu_microcode_name="/boot/firmware/intel-ucode.bin"

 For   power   management   I  added  the  following  lines  to
 /etc/rc.conf:

   powerd_enable="YES"
   powerd_flags="-n adaptive -a hiadaptive -b adaptive -m 800 -M 1600"
   performance_cx_lowest=C1
   economy_cx_lowest=Cmax

 and the following line to /boot/loader.conf:

   acpi_video_load="YES"

                        $HOME in ramdisk
                        ----------------

 I like to have my $HOME directory in ramdisk  (also  known  as
 "memory  file  system"). This way I always have a clean $HOME,
 and I don't have to worry about  super  cookies,  cookies  and
 other  bad  stuff  like that. It also helps when you work with
 flash memory for local storage.

 FreeBSD doesn't have the  brilliant  "-P"  mount  option  that
 OpenBSD  has,  which  will automagically set up your ramdisks.
 Therefor at boot time the home directory  is  populated  by  a
 small  shell  script  that is started from a startup script in
 /usr/local/etc/rc.d.

                         Window manager
                         --------------

 I have been using the  ratpoison window  manager  for  perhaps
 more  than  a  decade, and a couple of years ago I switched to
 the i3 window manager. On this old laptop I am also using i3.

 At  the  time  of  setting  every  thing  up,  I  was  in   an
 unconfigured  X setting, so I was working with the default TWM
 window manager and the default settings for  Xterm,  including
 the  default Xterm font. In circumstances where one only needs
 a few xterm windows, and perhaps a web  browser,  this  is  of
 course good enough.

                        Fine workstation
                        ----------------

 I have been using this laptop with FreeBSD for some years now,
 and I think it is a fine workstation, but I am not a gamer.

 In general, I prefer small laptops, and think that 12 inch  is
 the  sweet  spot.  The  keyboard is great and I like the 4 x 3
 aspect ratio of the monitor of this laptop.

 My most used applications are thinks like  ed, mg, vi  ,  Vim,
 Emacs,  tmux, lynx and w3m. Also I do use Firefox, LibreOffice
 and Gimp, and most of the time I am using SSH  to  connect  to
 some remote system.

 So,  if  your needs are modest, and you use FreeBSD, you don't
 need a fancy high performance system, and any old laptop  will
 do fine.