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.