Date: Thu, 8 May 2003 13:10:59 -0400 From: Peter Radcliffe <pir@pir.net> To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ideal laptop recommendations? Message-ID: <20030508171059.GB18476@pir.net> In-Reply-To: <200305081643.JAA27320@mina.soco.agilent.com> References: <b9bbj9$pek$1@main.gmane.org> <200305081643.JAA27320@mina.soco.agilent.com>
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Darryl Okahata <darrylo@soco.agilent.com> probably said: > I've had it since mid-January or so. Sorry, I don't know of any > brick-and-mortar stores that carry them. I got my X30 in early January and don't know of any physical stores that carry them either. > * The A31 does not come with a floppy. You can get an external floppy, > but it's an USB floppy. This is not an issue for me (I can still boot > from CDROM), but it's an issue for some. I believe you can use the Ultrabay 2000 floppy with the T20 cable on an A31, just as you can on the X30, to get a real external floppy drive rather than the USB one plugged into the parallel port. > * If you want to dual-boot Windows and FreeBSD, and still keep the > special IBM software that allows you to quickly reinstall Windows from > an hidden partition (it's very nice), you'll have to specially-install > FreeBSD, as the IBM software appears to use a "boot track" instead of > a "boot sector". The normal FreeBSD approach of installing a new boot > sector *will* screw things up (for the IBM software, not FreeBSD). Huh. I didn't work out how to keep the IBM recovery software and didn't care too much about it since I got recovery CDs for it. > it's definitely an issue, as some (many? most? all?) Thinkpads DO NOT > COME WITH WINDOWS RECOVERY CDROMS. Unless you pay extra ($20-$30???) > and order the recovery CDROMs from IBM (I think they're "free" if you > get them within the first 30 days after getting a Thinkpad), the only The day my X30 arrived I called IBM, told them it didn't come with recovery CDs and I wanted a set. They arrived at my door two days later completely free of charge. > * APM seems to work, but there are issues: I can't get the laptop to > hibernate (suspend-to-disk), I can, at least with the X30 and several others. You have to create a suspend to disk partition with the IBM version of phdisk in the right place (below 8Gb on disk). You can use the standalone floppy to do it; http://www-3.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-4PESMK.html or the program itself; http://www-3.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-4HT3R8 from 'Message-ID: <20030105090529.GJ17859@pir.net>' I sent to -mobile; ] I used the seperate floppy version of this (which is just their ] version of phdisk) to create a suspend to disk partition on my X30. ] ] I resized the XP NTFS partition down (with partition magic 8), created ] the suspend partition with the floppy from IBM (the utility put it ] right after the NTFS partition and I made it big enough for the full ] 1gb of memory the machine can take) and then installed FreeBSD from ] CD. ] ] It now dual boots XP in NTFS on the first partition), 2nd partition is ] suspend to disk, 3rd partition is FreeBSD 4.7-STABLE. I'm even using ] the XP bootloader to boot FreeBSD ;) ] ] FreeBSD suspends to memory and disk fine, as long as there isn't a ] compact flash card in the CF slot (if there is it makes a be-boop ] noise and just turns the screen off). It doesn't use the default BIOS ] save to disk screen, it has a snazzy thinkpad screen ... and writes ] out to disk a lot faster than my Z505 ever did. ] XP suspends to memory and disk fine, although it still uses it's own ] hibernation file in the NTFS partition so I've wasted a bit of disk. ] Eh. > Andx suspending from X11 causes the resume to "hang" (LCD display > becomes "blotchy" without displaying any text or graphics). The > latter is possibly fixed with newer versions of XFree86 (I'm using > 4.2.1, and need to upgrade), and the workaround is to switch to a > vty before suspending. Hmm, what graphics chipset is that machine ? The Intel I830MG in mine goes through suspend/resume fine with XF86 4.3.0 (latest version of fixes from ports). > * Under WinXP pro (ick), there is a feature where the laptop will go > into hibernation (suspend-to-disk) if it's been in suspend mode > (suspend-to-RAM) for a specified period of time. This seems to work > only if the suspend mode was entered while the battery was being used; > if the suspend is entered while on AC, the hibernation does not occur > (but, it does seem that a forced hibernation does occur when the > batteries are just about drained). That may be changable in the BIOS (there is a BIOS setting for if it should go to hibernation while suspended and when) or with the ps2.exe utility. P. -- pir pir-sig@pir.net pir-sig@net.tufts.edu
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