I did a bare-metal install of #NetBSD today on my 2017 HP Pavilion (Intel/Nvidia) laptop using a USB-connected 500 GB HDD. It took a couple passes before I figured out that I had to manually remove the MBR on the target drive for the installation to boot. Then it was easy because I've done a bunch of practice installs. On this laptop, everything works: WiFi X11 Sound (and volume buttons) Brightness buttons YouTube video plays great On par with #OpenBSD, better than #FreeBSD on this hardware