From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Dec 15 17:40:06 1996 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id RAA28001 for hackers-outgoing; Sun, 15 Dec 1996 17:40:06 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id RAA27955 for ; Sun, 15 Dec 1996 17:40:00 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.2/8.7.3) id MAA19083; Mon, 16 Dec 1996 12:09:29 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199612160139.MAA19083@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: notebook: which one In-Reply-To: <199612131252.NAA04767@gvr.win.tue.nl> from Guido van Rooij at "Dec 13, 96 01:52:53 pm" To: guido@gvr.win.tue.nl (Guido van Rooij) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 12:09:28 +1030 (CST) Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Guido van Rooij stands accused of saying: > I am looking for a notebook that is well supported under FreeBSD. > It should have 16 mb and a decent screen and have either a 0.5 or 1.0 > gigabyte fixed disk. I am particularly interested in which brand is the best > to choose. Well, I'll play my old tune and recommend the older Sharp PC90x0 series (9000/9030/9070, not the 9020 etc.); these systems have served us very well indeed. They're all pentia (100/120/133) with 256K L2 cache, 2 memory slots (8/16/32 per slot), 800x600 displays (passive 8-bit on the 9000, active 16-bit on the others), PCI IDE interfaces etc etc etc. Bear in mind that newer non-bargain systems will almost certainly be CardBus machines, not PCMCIA, and thus you will have to get down and dirty writing drivers for the bus interface if you want to use plugin cards. Sharp's units seem to be pretty good, plenty of people have said nice things about NEC, and modulo some percieved mechanical problems locally (flimsy construction mostly) Toshiba are good too. The new Acer machines are getting a mixed review; in particular they seem to have poor disk performance. > -Guido -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[