Date: Wed, 19 Apr 95 12:35:04 MDT From: terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert) To: ugong495@mozcom.com (PhilData) Cc: questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: freebsd on notebooks Message-ID: <9504191835.AA19377@cs.weber.edu> In-Reply-To: <MAPI.Id.0016.00676f6e673439354138423830303030@MAPI.to.RFC822> from "PhilData" at Apr 19, 95 02:11:25 pm
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> 1. can freebsd can be installed in notebooks ? Yes. > 2. does freebsd recognize pcmcia drives ? This depends on the PCMCIA bridge chipset in the notebook; for most notebooks, the answer will be yes (most of them use Intel or Intel clone chipsets). Since it is free, you should download it and try it to find out about your particular notebook. > 3. will freebsd allow an application on a notebook to switch to 132 > columns in text mode ? Unless you are running NEC Versa ?/#HC (where '?' is 'M' or 'P' and '#' is '100' or '75', respectively), or unless you are running an AT&T Globalyst 250P [OEM NEC] (or a tadpole SPARCBook), your internal display is going to be 640x480 (this is *the* main reason I don't yet own a portable). 640/132 = 4.8, and since you can't have an odd pixel boundry, round down to 4 pixels per character @ 132 columns. Subtract one pixel per character so the letters are seperate, and you have a 3 pixel wide font. This is not entirely impossible, but I sure as heck would not recommend it! If you get one of the NECs, at 800x600 you get 6.06 (rounds to 6) or 5 pixel wide fonts. This is probably livable, just barely. The NEC's are pricey even without the added display width (the extra display is $900, something I'd be willing to pay for it). If NEC wasn't so generically pricey, I'd already own one. The Tadpole system (requires you to run SunOS; NetBSD won't boot there, and FreeBSD doesn't have a SPARC port) is better at 1024x768 giving 7.75 (7) or 6 pixel wide fonts. This is even sufficient for X. The 1024x768 is optional and carries a hefty price tag as of the last time I checked: add $5000 to th price of the machine. I suspect you will have to live without 132 column mode on your laptop (unless you are made of money, in which case you should buy both you and me a SPARCBook, and I'll port FreeBSD for you). Terry Lambert terry@cs.weber.edu --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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