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Date:      Fri, 05 Sep 1997 10:16:50 +0200
From:      Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk>
To:        John Polstra <jdp@polstra.com>
Cc:        freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: High-resolution displays 
Message-ID:  <6946.873447410@critter.freebsd.dk>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 04 Sep 1997 08:36:00 PDT." <199709041536.IAA00947@austin.polstra.com> 

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In message <199709041536.IAA00947@austin.polstra.com>, John Polstra writes:
>I want to set up a laptop running FreeBSD to use when I'm working out
>of town.

Hi john!

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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