Re: Recommend a laptop for FreeBSD

On Friday 19 April 2002 08:24 am, Jim Freeze wrote:
| On Fri, Apr 19, 2002 at 03:55:02AM -0400, parv wrote:
| > > I'm looking to purchase a laptop to run FreeBSD.  Other than the
| > > best price performance, I'm looking for troublefree installation
| > > and native support for all the hardware.
|
| You may want to consider getting an iBook. It's not exactly
| FreeBSD, but it's a Unix platform. I have been running FreeBSD
| for several years now and have often contemplated getting a laptop
| and putting freebsd on it. But I just did not have the time
| to do all the research and then worry about all the special
| apm services working.
|
| With the iBook/airport card and the airport base station, I
| can work anywhere in the house and connect to my server
| and perform administration work as needed. I don't have to
| worry about apm. I get audio and video (you enter a new world
| of computer use with a wireless card and iTunes :) )
| a cdburner and the ability to create movies. But, the big seller,
| I still get all the unix sw that I use on FreeBSD.

I've been running FreeBSD on laptops on and off for seven years; it's really 
not anything to be afraid of.

I recommend Dell Inspiron.  For a trouble-free installation, you need only 
make sure that you do two things:

- Get one with an ATI graphics chip, not an Nvidia, and
- Don't install X directly from the install disk; install the Xfree 4 port 
instead.  (And don't try to automatically generate the XF86Config; instead, 
go to the "linux for laptops" page and get an pre-cooked config for your 
machine.)

Also, remember that when you buy PCMCIA cards, get the 16-bit cards, not the 
newfandled 32-bit cards.

(NOTE: It is possible to use nvidia graphics chips and 32-bit cards now, but 
if you want a trouble-free, simple experience, don't do that.  Those both 
still involve fiddling.)

| $0.02

-- 
Brian T. Schellenberger . . . . . . .   [email protected] (work)
Brian, the man from Babble-On . . . .   [email protected] (personal)
                                ME -->  http://www.babbleon.org
http://www.eff.org   <-- GOOD GUYS -->  http://www.programming-freedom.org 

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