One of My Best Decisions
Posted on with tags Technology, Lifestyle, and Openbsd
Last spring, in the beginning of my masters’ program, I challenged myself to use OpenBSD on an ThinkPad X200 from 2008 for the duration of the semester. OpenBSD did not have drivers for my Atheros wifi card to authenticate to my university’s PEAP wireless network, so I was basically consigned to only having internet if I could find an ethernet outlet. (On a modern campus they are not so common.) Even with internet access, however, the dated hardware couldn’t reliably play video (at least on OpenBSD) and it’s not like watching youtube or movies on the tiny, dim CCFL screen was that enjoyable anyway.
A candidly icon and glasses adorned X200
Using a basic machine like this, with a simple operating system, and minimal internet connection was one of the best decisions I have made because it required I learn how to use my system by discovery and it required that I really focus on my course work without distractions. If I needed the internet, I’d have to hike up to the campus library (the only place open nearly 24/7 with reliable ethernet) to download the scientific papers, homeworks, &c. I was looking for. This made my internet use intentional and I found that I naturally would write down a list of the things I wanted to look up throughout the day instead of pulling my computer out and searching for things as they came to mind.
One memory that really stands out to me as highlighting the value of these limitations was on a Friday morning last March. I had come right from an orthros service and needed to finish working on a homework assignment. So, I went right to an isolated corner of the library and banged it out. When I was done, I hooked up my laptop to the ethernet, submitted the assignment, and went about my day. There was no room for distraction because the confines of the environment made wasting time sufficiently inconvenient; moreover, using it was boring.
Although this was a fun experiment, using a laptop from 2008 with zero wifi connectivity on campus was pretty untenable.
Compiling R packages with a 2 thread CPU and 4Gb of RAM was similarly Herculean (to my knowledge, OpenBSD does not have pre-compiled packages binaries available for R).
That said, used laptops with Linux or a BSD are really all you need these days.
Libreboot has even been expanding to recent hardware.