Date: Mon, 06 Oct 1997 11:32:26 +0200 From: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@freebsd.org> To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org, faq@freebsd.org Subject: stick this in the faq/handbook ? Message-ID: <2535.876130346@critter.freebsd.dk>
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I'm getting a lot of questions on this lately, so maybe this should go in the faq and/or handbook ? I'm sorry but SGML is not my strong side, I hope somebody can DTRT to get it SGMLified. Poul-Henning ------------------------------------------------------------------------- First decide if it's going to be your primary machine or not, this may sound weird, but you may soon find that you spend much more time with your portable that with your stationary machine (Think "bed, beach, garden, airport, plane, bus, train, office..."). If it's going to be your primary machine, you may want to choose slightly differently. Next determine what order your parameters come in: Weight: If you carry your machine around in a knapsack all the time, you will want a light machine. If you carry it in your car, weight is not important. If weight is important, remember to add the weight of the powersupply an extra battery and any external devices (floppies, cdroms &c) you will carry around. Power: If you always have an power outlet handy, battery life is not important if planes are always late for you, it is. If Battery life is important make sure that you can charge the batteries while they're not in the computer (very handy in planes :-) Batterylife specs should be divided by two before you even remotely trust them. Our APM support is not as capable as that of Win95, and we tend to use the machine more. RAM: This one is easy: Max it out. The more RAM you have the less you need your disk, the longer your battery last. Display: You seem pretty determined about this one. Be aware that on an LCD you can use far smaller fonts than on a CRT. I run a 5x7 font most of the time with no problems. (I cant wait until I can aford a LCD screen for my desk too :-) Bigger screens means bigger powerdrain, and they are more fragile (although they're pretty damn robust these days. Your hard disk will croak first I bet). Hard disk drives: Make sure that you can swap a bigger one in yourself. Consider buying the smallest disk they have, and plug in the biggest you can lay your hands on. (IBM, Hitachi and Toshiba are the players in this game). 2.5" disks come in three heights: 1/3", 1/2" and 3/4" (9, 12.7 & 19mm). The thicker the cheaper per GB, and the more GB you can fit in there. Current limits are around 1, 3 and 5 GB. Floppy disk/CDROM drives: If weight/portability is important, consider getting a machine with external floppy and CDROM. My floppy drive is at home all the time, I never use it. Keyboard: It is about the most important thing on the machine, if you can't live with it, forget it. Try it out, even the same manufacturer makes many different keyboards. The layout of the keys should be examined too. PcCard/CardBus slots: Get 2 x size2. You're unlikely to ever use it for anything but a modem and a netcard. CardBus is vaporware so far. Pointing gadget: Consider carefully and try out, if you intend to work "in the field". Docking ability: This may be important to you when you're home. Quality: If you carry your computer through war-zones a lot, you will want a sturdy and well made quality. Modularity: Some laptops have "bays" where you can stick batteries/disks/cdroms and so on. Generally the more openings there are, the more it will fall apart. Can be very handy to be able to flip another disk in on short notice. Service/Support: Some are backed by worldwide service organizations (DEC, HP, IBM), others are all but impossible to get repaired (Carry in service in Singapore...). Check the magazines, they regularly feature comparisons between 20 or more different laptops, watch out for warning signs. Variuos advice, based on experience: Carry you computer in a knapsack on you back, it takes far less bangs and shakes there and is generally under the umbrealla if you are. Never use a shoulder bag, they bump into everything all the time and are prime targets for theft in airports. Nobody steals a knapsack, it's likely to contain a weeks worth of laundry :-) If you travel, pack your t-shirts around it, it looks like laundry and it protects against bumps. Pad the bottom of you bag with soft leather folded 5 or 10 times, or even use a small sturdy soft leather bag as padding. This is the best protection you can get. Rubber/foam isn't as good because it's elastic, you don't want the computer to bounce up and down. Keep your pccard's connector clean. If you run of the cirgar-lighter plug in the car, be sure that you have a good spike filter on your cable. Make sure you have a backup method, and stick to it. Portable disks live a dangerous life. If you drive starts making "klONK!" sounds it is trying to say goodbye to you while it still can. Make a small DOS partition, there is usually a bunch of weird small programs that runs under dos, bios upgrades being just one of these. Always make sure the hard-drive is level when it runs. Even a 5 degree slant from horizontal is deadly for the bearings. Remember that contact start/stop cycles are very tough on your drive. It may be better to have it run idle for long periods, rather than have it start/stop all the time. If you travel by train or bus, make it a habit to have a small window where you do a "sleep 2820 ; cat /kernel > /dev/audio" or similar. (Adjust 2820 to match the ETA at your your destination). Hope this helps. Poul-Henning Kamp (Portable BSD user since 386BSD-0.1) PS: My current "critter" is a HP800CT, chosen for it's low weight and HP-quality ruggedness. It has an 800x600 display on which I'm running only 16 color mode because XIG Still hasn't fixed the problem in their driver :-( Drives are 1/2", I have a 3G Hitachi in there now. 48M RAM, (you can get 80Mb now), and the cute little HP floppy-mouse (may people are afraid of this mouse, I've come to love it. It even works in trains!) It has a docking connector, to which you can also connect a special SCSI cable (the "special" is that the NCR chip is in the connector on the cable :-) Two PCMCIA/CardBus slots. Highly recommended. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Poul-Henning Kamp FreeBSD coreteam member phk@FreeBSD.ORG "Real hackers run -current on their laptop."
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