Working around dragons with the Lemote Yeeloong laptop and OpenBSD

(oldvcr.blogspot.com)

71 points | by zdw 4 hours ago

6 comments

  • userbinator 13 minutes ago
    I don't think these machines achieved much popularity in China either, as standard PCs were far more common and compatible with the existing software base.

    the keyboard and trackpad are internally PS/2.

    Interesting that the PC influence is still there, although I'm pretty sure a MIPS doesn't have them on port 60h/64h, or indeed any I/O ports. I remember having a similar moment of surprise when I played around with an ARM VM and discovered it had a "VGA-compatible" GPU emulating an old ISA-class chip.

  • bentley 2 hours ago
    The NetSurf browser the author tried out has multiple frontends. Two run on OpenBSD that I know of, the “default” GTK frontend and an SDL‐based framebuffer frontend. As was pointed out, GTK has a rather sizeable number of dependencies; building the framebuffer frontend instead would save a lot of time.
    • classichasclass 2 hours ago
      (author) Is there a way to specifically build the framebuffer version from the ports tree? I didn't see one.
    • anthk 1 hour ago
      Mainline Dillo runs faster and smoother, it's just an fltk + git clone && configure +make install away.
  • JdeBP 3 hours ago
    The wsconscfg problem with multiple screens, whatever it exactly is, is decidedly odd. According to this, the display is being driven as smfb0 in what is largely a dumb framebuffer mode, no acceleration, no GPU, no fancy high jinks whatsoever. wscons/wsdisplay should have no difficulty with multiple screens on that sort of thing.
  • anthk 2 hours ago
    No computer is obsolete with a BSD. I still use an n270 netbook daily.
    • iberator 1 hour ago
      Acer aspire one with NetBSD
  • shrubble 2 hours ago
    It’s tough to find them on eBay; I wonder what the right search terms are?
  • stevefan1999 4 hours ago
    I still think it is very cursed to see that image of RMS using that laptop despite I was shocked to see it 12 years ago. Still shocks me to this day.
    • em-bee 3 hours ago
      what is shocking about it?
      • sellmesoap 2 hours ago
        I think because it's RMS champion of digital openess using using an archaine Chinese laptop, it's the dichotomy of China providing a product that's essentially more free (of binary blob firmware) then a western equivalent laptop. Take heed and dispare oh ye providers of win modems!