Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 09:52:33 -0800 From: "Kevin Oberman" <oberman@es.net> To: Mike Harding <mvh@ix.netcom.com> Cc: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Laptop 'short list'? Message-ID: <20021105175233.971C15D04@ptavv.es.net> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 05 Nov 2002 06:47:19 PST." <20021105144719.ADE431310B@netcom1.netcom.com>
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> From: Mike Harding <mvh@ix.netcom.com> > Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 06:47:19 -0800 (PST) > Sender: owner-freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG > > > I don't currently have a laptop, but I need to get one soon. I'll > probably be running XP/FreeBSD dual boot. I haven't found much into > on the web, sorry about bothering the list. Had a few questions: > > - What are some good laptops for FreeBSD? By this I mean > - installs > - suspend and resume work (or whatever power functions, I don't know > if suspend to disk is supported) > - 3d Video is supported (maybe) meaning non-nvidia, right? > - The ultra-lightweights have some appeal to me, I don't know that > I'm looking to replace my desktop, so the really small laptops > seem nice, unless they're not usable for extended periods because > of a small screen or keyboard. > > Any stores that have good stock? I haven't really been able to look > at laptops. Any good deals out there? > > Also, how much memory should I get for XP? I know that it's a pig - I > will be using powerpoint, but mostly just Office. My group just bought new laptops late last summer. We decided that we wanted two spindle systems with hi-res displays and as light as possible. We selected IBM T30s with 14.1 inch 1400x1050 displays and built-in wireless and 10/100 Ethernet. (They have BlueTooth, too, but I have no use for it.) It's very fast. I love the box, even if it's not very sexy looking. It is blazingly fast with a 1.8 GHz CPU and good I/O so that I have done a 4.7 buildworld in under 25 minutes. (Very few tests of overall system performance are really more diverse than a buildworld.) And, at 4.5 pounds, it's not too heavy. APM support is good with V4. I'll have to try current on it some day to see how well the ACPI stuff works. If you create a hibernate partition it will hibernate, suspend and resume. Power management stuff (like performance, screen brightness, and disk spin-down all work. The wireless card I have (Intel branded, but actually Intersil) works with the wi driver with no tweaks. Likewise the Intel 10/100 card (fxp). You can also get the Cisco WI-Fi card, but I have no experience with it. Sound worked with minimal kernel set-up. X setup was easy using the -config option to the X server to create an initial configuration. There is a bug in the ATI/Radeon driver in 4.2.1 which causes come clipping problems that can be fixed by using the CVS drivers. This applies to ANY laptop with a Radeon card. CD/DVD seem to work fine. I have played movies and audio as well al installing FreeBSD from CD and burning ISO 9660 disks. I am looking forward to support for UDF in current so I can do packet operations, but writing UDF is not even in current yet. (This is a universal problem for FreeBSD.) And it's FAST! Problems: 1. The modem in the new Agre WinModem which still lacks a driver. I understand that support is being worked on, but I have no idea when it will arrive. It seems that almost all new laptops are coming with this WinModem, so I expect that someone will get it working before long, almost certainly by building shims to the Agre supplied Linux driver. 2. BIOS settings can be partly accomplished at boot-up time, but many most options must be set up using the IBM PS2 utility which requires Windows, DOS, or a bootable floppy. (And the T30 does not have a floppy and requires a port replicator to plug one in.) 3. The display and BIOS are not a very happy match. The drivers in Windows and APM seem to interact in some manner to make things work cleanly and I am hoping for IBM to fix BIOS so the OS need not get involved. If the display is turned off, it will not re-sync when turned back on. IT can be synced by switching to a text screen (CRTL-ALT-F2) before turning off. If it has turned off in graphics mode, switch to text mode and use <ALT-F3> to turn the display off. Press ,Shift> to turn the display on and go back to graphics mode (<ALT-F9>. The latter problem is the most annoying and the one I'd most like to see fixed, but it may be a while as IBM has to do it. Linux has made tweaks to the APM code to work around it and I am looking at ways to do the same thing in FreeBSD, but the APM code is VERY different and the Linux code is far more complex, so I may not succeed. Still, I am very happy with the box. (Did I mention that it is FAST?) R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message
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