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From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.de>
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Subject: Re: FreeBSD on Laptop
In-Reply-To: <199612091400.JAA18180@lakes.water.net> from Thomas David Rivers at "Dec 9, 96 09:00:27 am"
To: ponds!rivers@dg-rtp.dg.com (Thomas David Rivers)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 19:15:35 -0500 (EST)
Cc: hackers@freebsd.org (FreeBSD Hackers)
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Thomas David Rivers writes:
>>
>> I want to buy a laptop that will work well with FreeBSD. I'm thinking
>> specifically of the ACER Light Note series. Do you have any information
>> on FreeBSD compatability with ACER and other laptops?
>
>  As it so happens, I run FreeBSD 2.1.5 on an Acer Note (Not the "light"
> version) laptop..  Pentium 75, 8meg ram, 810meg hard disk, dual-scan display,
> PS/2 mouse, serial port...
>
>  It runs just fine there - recognizes the sound card and everything.  In
> fact, its one of my easier machines to handle.   I do have a problem
> using the mouse-pad on very humid days; so I always carry a PS/2 mouse
> along with me.
>
>  The only "real" problem I've encountered is the PCMCIA port - I haven't
> successfully gotten my no-name NE2000 card recognized yet.  I wouldn't expect
> that to be a problem of the Acer though; but more likely the PCMCIA support
> in FreeBSD 2.1.5 (it's "beta" quality there.)

I replied to the original question before, but now I have an update
(this is coming from the laptop, BTW, currently at Cincinnati
airport).  You may have followed my trials and tribulations getting
the Ethernet up and running.  One of the things I tried was a card
which I believe was NE2000 compatible, but the skimpy documentation
didn't bother to give that information, and since I couldn't get it to
work, I sent it back.

I *did* get the 3Com 3C589C to work, but it was difficult.  After
comparing notes with 3Com and the -mobile people, I am tending to the
impression that there is something non-standard about the PCMCIA
adapter.  The support person at 3Com said that they had problems with
non-Intel PCMCIA chipsets.

Bottom line: you can get the 3C589C to work only if you don't generate
in PCMCIA support.  The GENERIC kernel on the CD-ROM should work fine.
I'm running 3.0-CURRENT, but I didn't need to do anything special to
get the board to work beyond setting the links: if you're connecting
to RG58, do 'ifconfig zp0 <addr> link1'.  UTP must be link0, but I
haven't tried that yet.

Greg