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Xref: sserve comp.sys.laptops:7537 comp.os.linux:28245 comp.os.386bsd.questions:456 Newsgroups: comp.sys.laptops,comp.os.linux,comp.os.386bsd.questions Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!concert!sas!mozart.unx.sas.com!torpid.unx.sas.com!sastdr From: sastdr@torpid.unx.sas.com (Thomas David Rivers) Subject: Re: Un*x on laptop/notebook Summary: Success. Sender: news@unx.sas.com (Noter of Newsworthy Events) Message-ID: <C3BH64.Dw5@unx.sas.com> Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 14:20:28 GMT References: <9306211.12030@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> Nntp-Posting-Host: torpid.unx.sas.com Organization: SAS Institute Inc. Lines: 45 I'm running 386bsd on a CompuAdd 325TX (which just went on sale - they're phasing them out.) It has an AMD 386SL (25 Mhz); with a Cyrix Math Coprocessor; 8 megs of memory, and a standard VGA card which has "Cirrus" written all over it. The hard disk (IDE) is a Toshiba MK2124 - 120 megabytes. [I would *love* to get something larger, if anyone knows where/how.] I run monochrome X with no problems, using the trackball that comes with the laptop as the mouse. The only real problem I had was getting the laptop to boot after the initial hard drive installation. The default boot blocks failed miserably; and even Julian's new boot blocks (which use the BIOS) didn't work. Apparently, there is something going funny in the BIOS call which reports the boot device. When I hard-coded the boot device (to 0x80 - the first hard disk) on the INT 13 which loads the initial sector (in Julian's new boot blocks) - I had no problem. The only thing that seems to be going on now; is every now and then, for no really apparent reason, the system locks up - but I'm not even sure if it is a fault of the laptop, or just a different problem in 386bsd. I haven't experienced the same lock-ups with my other (non-laptop) machines. As far as "useability" - although slower than my 386DX machines, the laptop seems to be plenty nice enough for doing most things (C compiles, X, etc...) My only complaints are: 1) After loading up the binary distribution and XFree86-1.2; my hard disk has about 30 (of the original 120) free. Now, I need to point out that a) I have a 30 meg swap partition, which could be made smaller, and b) I have separate /usr and / partitions, which is probably a bad idea, since it makes it difficult to use the remaining free space. 2) The 800x600 virtual screen provided my the XFree86-1.2 monochrome server is too small to run xmahjongg. :-) - Dave Rivers - -- UPDATE ALL INFORMATION AND POD INTO COSMOS - Federal Express