# 2009 Laptop running FreeBSD vs. Raspberry Pi Zero running Linux



## Jason_25 (Feb 21, 2018)

I thought others would find this interesting.  I have come to the conclusion that FreeBSD performs so poorly on this laptop that a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero would run better.

Laptop Specs:
Dual core 2.2 ghz
4GB RAM
Nvidia GTX 260 with 1GB VRAM with Nvidia driver installed and working
Sandisk SSD
50 watts power usage

Pi Zero Specs:
Single Core 1 ghz
512 MB RAM
Broadcom GPU
Micro SD card
1 watt power usage

Laptop
1. Boot time - boots to the KDE desktop in about 4 minutes
2. Web browsing - has trouble scrolling with a single Amazon tab and is too slow to play any web video
3. Video playback - VLC says it is too slow to play 400x320 resolution videos

Pi Zero
1. Boot time - boots into Linux in about 1 minute
2. Web browsing - can handle 1-3 tabs open in the web browser and can even sometimes play a video in the browser
3. Video playback - unaccelerated video up to 720p and accelerated video at 1080p

I have already built a replacement for this laptop but I feel so sorry for people who have to use a few years old computer to run FreeBSD.


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## SirDice (Feb 21, 2018)

So, you're comparing apples with oranges and are now complaining the oranges aren't green?


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## giahung1997 (Feb 21, 2018)

Jason_25 said:


> I thought others would find this interesting.  I have come to the conclusion that FreeBSD performs so poorly on this laptop that a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero would run better.
> 
> Laptop Specs:
> Dual core 2.2 ghz
> ...


Please provide more information. If on laptop you use KDE, on Pi you use Openbox or something like that, the comparision is pointless.

I know that they do optimized very much on the Pi device, when the old device just going to be thrown away, no one invest on it anymore.


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## drhowarddrfine (Feb 21, 2018)

I built my workstation four or five years ago and I can beat any of those numbers by several orders of magnitude. I feel sorry for people who don't know the difference.


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## Nicola Mingotti (Feb 21, 2018)

Umm, Jason_25 , I run FreeBSD-11.1 in a VMWare virtual machine which runs inside a MacBook Pro 2009, 2.5 GHz, Core 2 duo. The VM only uses one core, 5GB RAM and 20GB HD.* It runs very well *!

Since ~ 1 month, I use it for everything, the only things I still do in OSX are (1) printing, (2) skype, (3) sometimes MS Office.  

I reccomend you *remove KDE* and start using a light window manager.  My favourite is WindowMaker but also XFCE is probably fine for the purpose.


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## ronaldlees (Feb 21, 2018)

Jason_25 said:


> ...
> I have already built a replacement for this laptop but I feel so sorry for people who have to use a few years old computer to run FreeBSD.



One of my machines is a 2008 vintage computer:  2 GB, 2 GHz and it runs just fine with FreeBSD.  Four minutes?  You have a serious hardware or configuration problem.  You should look at your logs, etc.


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## Handsome Jack (Feb 21, 2018)

Jason_25 said:


> I thought others would find this interesting.  I have come to the conclusion that FreeBSD performs so poorly on this laptop that a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero would run better. [...]
> 
> Pi Zero
> 1. Boot time - boots into Linux in about 1 minute
> ...



But can it run Crysis?


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## herrbischoff (Feb 21, 2018)

Without a full `dmesg` output and Xorg configs this whole thing is meaningless.


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## Maxnix (Feb 21, 2018)

Jason_25 said:


> I thought others would find this interesting. I have come to the conclusion that FreeBSD performs so poorly on this laptop that a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero would run better.
> 
> Laptop Specs:
> Dual core 2.2 ghz
> ...


Please, be more precise: which CPU? Which laptop?


Jason_25 said:


> Laptop
> 1. Boot time - boots to the KDE desktop in about 4 minutes
> 2. Web browsing - has trouble scrolling with a single Amazon tab and is too slow to play any web video
> 3. Video playback - VLC says it is too slow to play 400x320 resolution videos


Leaving apart boot time, your problems seem related to something about graphics miscofigured. Are you sure the Nvidia driver is being used?


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## vermaden (Feb 25, 2018)

Jason_25 said:


> I thought others would find this interesting.  I have come to the conclusion that FreeBSD performs so poorly on this laptop that a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero would run better.
> 
> Laptop Specs:
> Dual core 2.2 ghz
> ...


This is very strange, I am using (from time to time) an old Dell E6400 laptop from 2008 with 2GB RAM, non-SSD 5400 HDD, also dual core with FreeBSD 11.x or HardenedBSD 11.x and it works very well, videos are played smoothly it starts about a 1 minute and I can browse the Internet without a problem ...


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