OpenBSD on a Toshiba NB305-410

In May 2010, I purchased a Toshiba NB305-410 netbook for my portable use. The actual part number is NB305-N410BL. It is used to run OpenBSD and it does so very well.

Note that there are several drivers missing for this hardware in OpenBSD 4.7; especially the video chipset which is required to run X11. OpenBSD -current as of July 2010 has full support for all hardware.

The main reason I got this particular netbook was for the keyboard and the relatively large trackpad. The keyboard is very easy to type on, especially for a netbook.

Screenshot showing the Scrotwm tiling window manager.

Click on image for a larger version.

Here is a full dmesg.

Hardware

The basic hardware specs of my netbook are as follows:

• Intel Atom CPU N450, 1.67GHz
• 1GB of RAM
• Intel Pineview Video
• Atheros AR9285 802.11a/g/n wireless network device (athn)
• Realtek 8101E Gigabit Ethernet (re)

Processor

The CPU is an Intel Atom N450 running at 1.67GHz.

cpu0: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N450 @ 1.66GHz ("GenuineIntel" 686-class) 1.67 GHz
cpu0: FPU,V86,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,CFLUSH,DS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,SBF,SSE3,MWAIT,DS-CPL,EST,TM2,SSSE3,CX16,xTPR,PDCM,MOVBE
...
cpu1: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N450 @ 1.66GHz ("GenuineIntel" 686-class) 1.67 GHz
cpu1: FPU,V86,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,CFLUSH,DS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,SBF,SSE3,MWAIT,DS-CPL,EST,TM2,SSSE3,CX16,xTPR,PDCM,MOVBE

Video

The Intel Pineview video is part of the Intel Pineview chipset. Support for this chipset was added in July 2010.

vga1 at pci0 dev 2 function 0 "Intel Pineview Video" rev 0x00
...
drm0 at inteldrm0 "Intel Pineview Video" rev 0x00 at pci0 dev 2 function 1 not configured

Network

The Realtek 8101E gigabit ethernet interface is supported under the re(4) driver.

re0 at pci3 dev 0 function 0 "Realtek 8101E" rev 0x02: RTL8102EL (0x2480), apic 2 int 18 (irq 5), address 00:26:22:f7:4f:e5

The Atheros AR9285 802.11a/g/n wireless interface is supported under the athn(4) driver.

athn0 at pci2 dev 0 function 0 "Atheros AR9285" rev 0x01: apic 2 int 17 (irq 10), address 00:26:4d:01:33:e3
athn0: AR9285 rev 2 (1T1R), ROM rev 13

Sound

While the volume is a bit weak on this netbook due to the small speakers, sound works fine.

azalia0 at pci0 dev 27 function 0 "Intel 82801GB HD Audio" rev 0x02: apic 2 int 22 (irq 11)
azalia0: codecs: Realtek ALC272
audio0 at azalia0

Keyboard

Most of the function (Fn) modifier keystrokes such as Fn+F6/F7 (screen brightness), Fn+F3 (sleep / suspend to RAM), and volume keys work.

APM

APM works fine with apmd(8).

apmd(8) and apm(8) work to automatically or manually control the speed of the CPU.

Suspend to RAM (sleep) with zzz, apm -z, or Fn+F3 works fine.