Re: ThinkPad HW

On Tue, 23 Jun 2026 at 12:11, Van Ly <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm looking to upgrade from ThinkPad E470 with 16GB memory and 256GB storage on i7-7500U processor and FHD display.
>
> The P1 gen 9 has support for OSes that include a number of Linux distributions but the starting price is too high.
>
> P14s gen 7 with 16GB:512GB on Ultra 7 366H vPro processor and 3K display is what I'm looking at to run NetBSD 11.
>
> Are there any gotchas in that config?  Is buying a T14/T14s/P14s gen 6 better?  The webportal retail configurator doesn't offer gen 5 SSD option for the T14 gen 7 model which has ethernet port builtin.  I'm leaning to Intel processors because the AI search suggests WiFi Intel drivers are more likely to work on BSD.  I understand T14 gen 1 is known to work well on NetBSD.
>
> Sometimes the P1 gen 8 is offered with 44% discount and includes the 8GB Blackwell 1000 graphics accelerator but would that be useless on NetBSD for lack of driver?
>
> Thanks in advance.

From my experience on NetBSD with any kind of recent ThinkPad (think
anything after a T480 or probably T490) you will probably be using a
USB Wi-Fi dongle, so Intel vs AMD doesn't really play there.

The Intel specific DRM driver probably maxes out around Intel Raptor
Lake Graphics (So ThinkPad T14gen1), but the generic modesetting
*should* work on recent onboard Intel and AMD (just without external
display support).

David