Date: Sun, 07 Mar 1999 09:41:54 -0800 From: Alan DuBoff <aland@SoftOrchestra.com> To: Frank Louwers <frank@zeuswpi.org> Cc: freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [newbie]: freebsd on ibm thinkpad Message-ID: <36E2BA62.27A67461@SoftOrchestra.com> References: <19990307102922.A10601@zeuswpi.org>
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First, let me preface this with that I am fairly new to FreeBSD also, and don't have everything setup properly yet, but it's getting together. Frank Louwers wrote: > My father recently got a new ThinkPad, so I get the old one :-) It is a > ThinkPad 760CD, with 5 GB HD and 56 MB RAM. That'll work fine. > 1) Any general problems concerning thinkpads and freebsd? (i did a search on > excite, but all it gave me were Japanese sites) A lot of the support for the pccard was done in Japan, and you will notice that there is really good support for Japanese with FreeBSD, as it is pretty popular over there. There is a lot of information in general on the FreeBSD web site in the Tutorials and FAQ. > 2) How stable is de pccard support? I am not talking about exotic things, but > just a plain 3Com networkcard, a modem, and mayby a flashcard from time to > time. Is it possible to install freebsd with the 3COM card (ftp install)? > Hot swappable? I think it's ok. You must recompile the kernel to add it, and of course edit the configuration file, but it seems to work good. > 3) You have your own bootmanager. I know the IBM BootManager is very good, and > have enough OS/2 licences to put one on it. Which do you advise me to use? FreeBSD's BootManager (Boot Easy???) is actually very friendly, it's one of the few that will let you go both ways with IBM's Boot Manager. IOW, I have that set on my computer, and the FreeBSD BootManager comes up, I can select either one of the boot partitions or IBM's Boot Manager, which will let me select the FreeBSD Boot Manager if I like, so it truely works in both directions, one of the few that does. I would say FreeBSD is one of the most friendly BootManagers. Win is the worst, with Solaris x86 following closely in non-friendliness with other partitions, and LILO (Linux's BootManager) being fairly friendly also. OS/2's Boot Manager and FreeBSD are the most friendly I've found. > 4) APM stuff: I am afraid the "Hibernation" function will not work? How about > normal suspends and resumes? Don't have mine enabled right now. I've seen some problems, not to Thinkpads in general, but didn't want to introduce anymore problems. > 5) There is a mwave sound/modem chip in it. I have read on some ThinkPad/Linux > pages that they are able to use the modem and soundcard (SoundBlaster > emulation), if they first boot to dos, load the dos-drivers and then boot > Linux (does FreeBSD has something like loadlinux to "boot" freebsd from within > dos?). Any news/info on doing the same on FreeBSD? No, no MWave modem driver. MWave is very similar to a WinModem, it handles a lot of the work in software. The good news is that IBM has made a statement with Linux that they will be releasing the technical specs for it so that people can write drivers for it. That is a step in the right direction, but it will take time. I have a Motorola Montana PCMCIA modem which is working with the pccard drivers. > 6) I was thinking about going for the 3.1 stable version. Are there any > advantages/disadvantages in taking 4.0-CURRENT? I am not sure, I'm running 2.2.8-release. I know the 3.x includes SMP support, which I don't need on my Thinkpad. 2.2.8 was just released in December, so it's pretty current. I'll send you a XF86Config file that you can use on your laptop for 1024x768 resolution, and it will work on the LCD and external monitor (in combination, so you can switch with the keyboard). It should work fine for you, I have a 765D, a bit newer model, but I think the video is the same...a Trident Cyber 9385. If not, change the driver and use the screen scan numbers. Lastly, FreeBSD is probably one of the best OSs I've used on the Thinkpad. The distribution CDs I got have all the latest software on it, very up to date. In retro, I recently got a Red Hat 5.2 CD from LinuxWorld and was looking on it, of course much of the stuff was outdated, like Communicator 4.07 (FreeBSD has Communicator 4.5), stuff like that. The ports are beautiful, they gunzip source to your hard disk, configure it, compile it, install it, they are really a work of art. -- Alan DuBoff - Conductor Software Orchestration, Inc. aland@SoftOrchestra.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message
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