From owner-freebsd-mobile Fri Jun 1 5:18:30 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Received: from jhs.muc.de (jhs.muc.de [193.149.49.84]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B2D1637B422 for ; Fri, 1 Jun 2001 05:18:17 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jhs@jhs.muc.de) Received: from park.jhs.private (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by jhs.muc.de (8.11.0/8.11.0) with ESMTP id f518cHX32967; Fri, 1 Jun 2001 08:38:17 GMT (envelope-from jhs@park.jhs.private) Message-Id: <200106010838.f518cHX32967@jhs.muc.de> To: Munish Chopra Cc: freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Purchasing a new laptop...advice? In-Reply-To: Message from Munish Chopra of "Mon, 28 May 2001 20:48:18 +0200." <20010528204818.C12149@messiah.megadeb.org> Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 10:38:17 +0200 From: "Julian Stacey Jhs@jhs.muc.de" Sender: owner-freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Munish Chopra wrote: > I am thinking about getting myself a laptop, as I need to be mobile and > online this summer. I'd be buying it within the next month, so I'd like > some advice. I need to be able to run FreeBSD on it (duh!), and I will > be buying it in Europe, after which I'll take it to North America (will > I be running into any power supply trouble? surely...), where I'm > actually moving. I don't where you'r moving from, but in case, guessing from your name, you might be EG Indian, & not aware of the European keyboard nightmare ;-) ... Nearly every European country I'm aware of, has weirdo (non ASCII) extra characters & a non standard keycap layout, EG French cidillas, German umlauts, Swedish O's with line through. Germans swop the Y & Z too. There are 2 German layouts, & 2 more Swiss German ! Even the British (who have none of these extra characters), still swap a couple of punctuation marks around relative to USA. I use USA layout (BIOS boot default) (even though I'm British in Germany), it's a pain having either mis-labelled or mis-mapped keyboards. I had one laptop with black keys & white lettering, where it wasn't even possible to get an indelible felt pen & write on the USA keymap. Think which country you will buy in, if the supplier or manufacturer will really guarantee to supply you an alternate keycap set, if uncertain avoid laptops with black/anthracite/grey keycaps. If you really want USA standard, maybe buy mail order from the USA. If you want to be able to support the extra weirdo European stuff, perhaps buy from Britain or Eire, there' you'll likely get the extra keys, but at least default labelled mostly like USA. Power: USA 110V 60Hz. Germany/mainland europe 220V nominal 50Hz Britain: 240V nominal (I saw 248 in my house) 50Hz, (I heard a rumour of a commmon aim for 230V, but doubt its true.) Julian - Julian Stacey Unix Consultant - Munich Germany http://bim.bsn.com/~jhs/ Ihr Rauchen => mein allergischer Kopfschmerz ! Kau/Schnupftabak probieren ! Like Linux ? Then also look at FreeBSD with its 5000+ packages ! To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message