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From: BRETT_GLASS@ccgate.infoworld.com
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Date: Mon, 16 Sep 96 14:23:42 PST
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To: hardware@freebsd.org, questions@freebsd.org
Subject: PCMCIA, APM, 3C562
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Have given up on OS/2 for my laptop.... It seems to be crashing and failing
big-time under the Merlin gamma, and my bug reports have been utterly
ignored. So, I'd like to try FreeBSD on it. But first, some questions:

How good is the PCMCIA support in FreeBSD? Will I be able to swap cards?

Is APM supported? Will the system (including PCMCIA) be able to survive a
suspend/resume cycle without "freaking out" or getting too busy to use due
to missed items in /etc/crontab? (Come to think of it, how DOES it handle
missed items in /etc/crontab?) Is there a sync on suspend? If the battery
dies during a suspend (common on many laptops that suspend when the
battery gets low), is the filesystem left "clean" and ready for a reboot?

Finally, there doesn't appear to be a driver for my 3C562 Modem/Ethernet
combo card. As I understand it, this card is really just a 3Com Ethernet
adapter and a modem (with standard UART) sharing an IRQ. Is there a driver
available? Would it be possible to construct one by creating a "hybrid"
driver that probed for the card, grabbed the one interrupt, and linked to
routines from the existing sio and 3Com PCMCIA Ethernet drivers?

--Brett