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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
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From: veit@mururoa.gmd.de (Holger Veit)
Subject: Re: [Q] Lap tops and 386BSD/NetBSD/FreeBSD?
Message-ID: <1993Sep7.080841.890@gmd.de>
Keywords: hardware compatibility
Sender: veit@mururoa (Holger Veit)
Nntp-Posting-Host: mururoa
Organization: GMD - German National Research Center for Computer Science
References: <1993Sep6.185901.5568@cs.cornell.edu>
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 08:08:41 GMT
Lines: 60
In article <1993Sep6.185901.5568@cs.cornell.edu>, chase@pine.ece.utexas.edu writes:
|> I expect this is a real frequently asked, and possibly outright dumb question,
|> but I'll ask it anyway (couldn't find any info in the recently posted FAQ).
|>
|> What is the relationship between 386BSD (and it's derivatives) and lap tops?
|> Any advice or information would be appreciated, and if this not a subject that
|> has already been beaten to death, I'd be happy to post a summary of the results.
|>
|> Questions which come immediately to mind are:
|> 1) will 386BSD run at all on lap tops?
Probably depends on your laptop, as well as the question "will *BSD run at all
on my desktop/tower?" highly depends on the hardware.
I have a Highscreen 486DX2-50 laptop with 4MB and 170MB disk and Cirrus-GD610
display controller. 386bsd out of the box booted without problems.
|> 2) how is the performance? in particular, what effect does a paging
|> multitasking operating system have on battery life?
With 4MB several files in the BSD source tree as well as some files
in the XFree86 source tree compiled "endless", but this effect is known
from desktops with 4MB as well. The overall performance is not much
worse than on my 486 tower.
During compile of Xfree86 or kernel or source, the disk is of course
heavily engaged, and the effect is significant for the battery life
(about 45min-1h to total fail, compared to pure DOS, low usage, powersave mode,
with 1,5-2,5h).
|> 3) is there a prayer of running X on a lap top?
This laptop has a mono display, and is VGA compatible. You can run
(or with 4MB say "creep") the xserver in 640x480, but it is not much
fun. I use it in text mode usually.
|>
|> And of course the obvious, "So what would you recommend?".
You can run *BSD on a laptop, but test it first with a boot disk in a
shop (some wellknown brands are rumoured to have incompatible
hardware, as they already had in desktops). Use the most powerful
hardware available (486DX2, not [34]86SX!, much disk, much RAM, color if
possible or affordable). Buy a second or third battery pack.
If you want to compile, RAM is important. Often the VGA cards
have 256K only, so X11 runs in 640x480 only which is not
recommended for longer work.
|>
|> I don't speak DOS (unless I have to) or MacOS, but I need a lap top.
|> I could go with a Sun laptop, but they seem somewhat pricey.
With a high-performance PC laptop you could reach the Sun category as well
without difficulties; and the cheap 386sx PCs are useful for DOS junk only.
Holger
--
Dr. Holger Veit | INTERNET: Holger.Veit@gmd.de
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