This is a list of laptops I have used with OpenBSD.
Laptop
Notes
Acer Aspire One
(1GB/160GB model)
OpenBSD 4.6-current - pretty much everything works (Sept, 2009).
ACPI. Does not suspend/resume.
During install, some bsd.rd kernels may spam message like
"pckbcintr: no dev for slot 1"
making it hard to type, but the live kernel does not give these.
You should run with GENERIC.MP; the Atom 270 CPU is "dual threaded" and
appears as a dual-core CPU.
X works out of the box with no config file
(Intel 82945GME Video, 1024x600).
As of July 2009, X starts at e.g., 800x600 if you have an external
projector plugged in, because the LCD is limited to 600 high.
Then switch using xrandr/krandr/lxrandr to 1024x768, the external
works at that res but the LCD goes black.
Touchpad and both buttons work.
Fn+F7 disables touchpad for use with USB mouse, as indicated on keytop.
Built-in "SuYin Acer Crystal Eye webcam" works fine but as long
as you use YUV format; e.g., luvcview -f yuv ...
(Arguably luvcview should be smart enough to auto-detect...).
Wired networking works.
Wireless does not; recognized as ath0
but does not connect, strange initialization errors:
ath0: unable to reset hardware; hal status 1
ath0: unable to reset hardware; hal status 0
Advice: Buy an Intel 4965AN or 5300 Mini-PCIe wireless card.
Instructions
here for swapping the cards.
I installed an Intel 5300 which connects as iwn and works fine,
even down to the "laptop power switch" working.
"Storage Extension" a.k.a. "left hand SD card slot" works fine.
"Card reader" a.k.a. "right hand SD card slot" is actually
multi-function, also reading other formats, but only SD works on OpenBSD,
and only if you have a card in at boot time (or disable ACPI).
OpenBSD 4.x-current (Jun 2009) works in both i386 and amd64 mode.
CardBus works if you update the BIOS or
change PCIBIOS to "flags 1" using boot -c
or using a custom kernel
X works out of the box.
Wireless card works as bwi(4), but starts interrupt storm after minutes,
so not really usable. Get a cheap USB wireless.
Sound works, sort of: the chipset seems to be stuck at 48KHz whereas
most software expects to be able to set it to 44.1 KHz (so sound
comes out at slightly wrong speed).
The SD card (sdhc(4)/sdmmc(4)) memory slot does not work.
![[OpenBSD]](/images/openbsd-smalltitle.gif){kind=small}