Hello, everyone. I'm here to ask for input on a hardware purchase that I believe seasoned OpenBSD users could provide some valuable insight into.
I am looking to purchase a ThinkPad to exclusively run OpenBSD on. The intent here is to have a dedicated machine to explore and play with OpenBSD, and eventually promote it as my primary day-to-day workstation. A little background: I own a T460s, and it's an excellent machine, but I feel it to be too fragile to use in harsh environments, like outdoors or hackerspaces with a lot of rough objects around. The factors for choosing a ThinkPad to begin with is that I own one already, I've heard good words about OpenBSDs support for them (apparently, stemming from the fact that developers use them themselves) and really, my inexperience with a lot of the fancy new things from other vendors. So, the characteristics I would like the machine to posses, first and foremost, are a strong outer shell, so it can sustain a fair beating (unintentional). Weight and size small enough that it doesn't become a burden (I also have a Dell Precision 3510, and it's so heavy/big that I would never purchase it myself on these factors alone). It doesn't need to come with the best and latest 7th gen Intel i7 - I don't plan to do extremely heavy loads on it - I have other machines for that. Nor does it have to have things like a fingerprint scanner and all the other bells and whistles. I don't care about a touch screen either. A decently sized ssd or spindle would be preferred. A reasonably low power consumption rate, or support for an extended battery, would be very preferential, as I travel and don't like to become stationary for charging. I don't abuse my equipment, so I would like it to not suffer from continuous hardware failures due to poor physical characteristics, like bad air circulation. I understand that the above description is vague and leaves a lot to the imagination, but that is intentional. I don't mind looking into other OEM products either. If anyone has personal experience to share, or point into the direction where I could get informed, I'm all ears. -- J. Misc.
