From owner-freebsd-mobile Fri Nov 10 10:38: 7 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Received: from wilson.acpub.duke.edu (wilson.acpub.duke.edu [152.3.233.69]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B5AEF37B479 for ; Fri, 10 Nov 2000 10:38:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from bobzilla.adsl.duke.edu (bobzilla.adsl.duke.edu [152.16.67.15]) by wilson.acpub.duke.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3/Duke-5.0.0) with ESMTP id NAA28079; Fri, 10 Nov 2000 13:37:58 -0500 (EST) Received: (from sto@localhost) by bobzilla.adsl.duke.edu (8.11.1/8.11.1) id eAAIbtn25701; Fri, 10 Nov 2000 13:37:55 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from sto) Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 13:37:55 -0500 From: "Sean O'Connell" To: Michael Lucas Cc: FreeBSD mobile Subject: Re: laptop recommendations Message-ID: <20001110133755.D25444@stat.Duke.EDU> Reply-To: "Sean O'Connell" Mail-Followup-To: Sean O'Connell , Michael Lucas , FreeBSD mobile References: <20001110131753.A62744@blackhelicopters.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20001110131753.A62744@blackhelicopters.org>; from mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org on Fri, Nov 10, 2000 at 01:17:53PM -0500 X-Organization: House of Schmutzli X-Kitties: Bitty Maya CJ Keisha Jacob Hopey X-Hound: Bob X-OS-of-Choice: FreeBSD Sender: owner-freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Michael Lucas stated: : I'm shocked. My new boss has approved about $3k for a UNIX laptop for : me. I've never spent that much money on a personal PC in my life. : : So, any recommendations? I need the ability to use 256meg of RAM and : X-windows. : : Thanks, Michael- There are a lot of machines that fall into this category and are 3000 or less :) Are there any other concerns: big, monster, movie theater size screen?, built-in ethernet?, small and light? small and light yet with built-in enet and cdrom? etc. My tastes lean toward the ultralights (I have a Sony 505-TR). I have been impressed with IBM's latest offerings T-20/21 are very nice, but you do need to build XFree86-4 from cvs (not sure our ports version supports the S3 Savage/MX or whatever), also, newpcm craps and dies with a timeout anytime you try and use pcm (waveplay or realaudio); however, the mixer works for cd audio (note: this is on an A-20M -- larger and slightly different notebooks -- would love to hear that this has been fixed ). The X-20 and A-20/21 series are nice too. X20 is an ultralight and uses Rage Mobility (supported by XFree86-4 out of ports) as does the A20 is the all-in-one offering. The Acer 600 series offer a nifty compromise with a built-in cdrom burner and 13.3" XGA screen ... uses Rage Mobility (ports XFree86-4). Audio is the ESS solo chip and works fine for realaudio and cd audio. The synaptics touchpad is only detected as a two button mouse ... even though it has a middle rocker switch :( The Sony Z505 series are quite nice (external cdrom only). The SR series are even smaller, but no built-in enet :( Gateway has a new ultralight, but it uses the Maestro-3 audio chip, which is not supported other than that it looks pretty good (forgot what the video card is). Toshiba's 3840 uses the S3 chipset, but looks pretty nice. Hmmm... then there are the whole line of luggables by Dell and others. Good luck and happy hunting. S -- 1--------01---------01--------01--------01--------01--------01--------0 Sean O'Connell sean@stat.Duke.EDU To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message