From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Sep 11 23:57:15 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 884E016A41F for ; Sun, 11 Sep 2005 23:57:15 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jerrymc@clunix.cl.msu.edu) Received: from clunix.cl.msu.edu (clunix.cl.msu.edu [35.9.2.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 34E2C43D48 for ; Sun, 11 Sep 2005 23:57:15 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jerrymc@clunix.cl.msu.edu) Received: from clunix.cl.msu.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by clunix.cl.msu.edu (8.12.10+Sun/8.12.2) with ESMTP id j8BNvEBn026899 for ; Sun, 11 Sep 2005 19:57:14 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from jerrymc@localhost) by clunix.cl.msu.edu (8.12.10+Sun/8.12.2/Submit) id j8BNvDo0026898 for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Sun, 11 Sep 2005 19:57:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Jerry McAllister Message-Id: <200509112357.j8BNvDo0026898@clunix.cl.msu.edu> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 19:57:13 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <20050911195615.GC54251@keyslapper.net> X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL7] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: Laptop questions X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 23:57:15 -0000 > > Hey all. > > I'm on the verge of getting myself a laptop. As this is my first > laptop, and I'm rewarding myself for a recent accomplishment, I > figured I'd go all out and get the top of the line Dell. I know, IBM > has some great notebooks, as does Gateway and particularly Apple. I'd > like to get an Apple, but that would be out of line with the reason > I'm rewarding myself. > > Bottom line, I'll need to keep Windows on the system - relevant to the > event for which I'm rewarding myself. Still, I'd really, REALLY like > to get FreeBSD (or some other *BSD) and/or *maybe* a Linux distro on > there as well. The hard drive is going to be a 100G, so I could > probably squeeze at least 2 OSes on without much trouble. Should be no problem. Just read the stuff on dual booting a machine. Make sure you leave the MS install in the original slice. (That is usually first, unless Dell also puts a diagnostic slice on it, then MS would be second slice) It doesn't pay to try to change the position where MS lives. Make sure all the MS install stuff is done first and then install the FreeBSd stuff because MS doesn't respect anything else and will overwrite MBRs and boot sectors and will not boot another system. FreeBSD will both respect other systems and the FreeBSD MBRs will boot any other system. So, install FreeBSD last. You will need to shrink the MS slice (which MS calls a partition) to make room for FreeBSD. IF the MS slice only has FAT type slices, they are are some free utilities that can be used to shrink the MS slice and make room for a FreeBSD slice. But, your laptop will probably have an NTFS type file system and I don't know of any current free utility that can shrink NTFS type file systems. There are a couple fairly inexpensive utilities on the market that can do it well. I have had good success using Partition Magic from PowerQuest to manipulate disk slices including NTFS types. One thing to keep in mind. Unless you are working on a separate disk from the one you are booting the machine you cannot run from the installed copy. To work on the main disk (most likely your case with a laptop), you must make the boot floppies it tells about in the Partition Magic documentation and then boot from them to do the disk slice manipulation. If you don't have a floppy on the laptop, you need to hook one up, maybe via USB if can be booted. More recent versions of PM might be able to do this from a bootable CD, but I don't know if they got around to it yet. > So the question: Has anyone successfully installed and run FreeBSD > (or any other *BSD or Linux distro) on a Dell Inspirion XPS Gen 2? I'm > planning to max out the RAM, include wireless networking, and sticking > with the 2GHz CPU. Other than that, it's pretty standard fare. Any > success stories would be most welcome. If anyone has found that > FreeBSD is not suited for this system (yet), or a specific Linux > distro is ideally suited for this system, that would be a most welcome > piece of info as well. I haven't used that particular machine, but it is way bigger than ones I have and there should be no problem with the capacity. There might be some complications with specific devices they include. You can check supported devices on the FreeBSD web site. Click on the 'hardware' link under the FreeBSD version you plan to use and then on the i386 in the list of CPU types on the next page. ////jerry > Lou > --=20 > Louis LeBlanc FreeBSD-at-keyslapper-DOT-net > Fully Funded Hobbyist, KeySlapper Extrordinaire :) > Please send off-list email to: leblanc at keyslapper d.t net > Key fingerprint =3D C5E7 4762 F071 CE3B ED51 4FB8 AF85 A2FE 80C8 D9A2 > > Shannon's Observation: > Nothing is so frustrating as a bad situation that is beginning to improve.