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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech2!swrinde!newsfeed.internetmci.com!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uwm.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!nntp.sei.cmu.edu!toads.pgh.pa.us!ky3b.pgh.pa.us!usenet From: Ken Mitchum <km@ky3b.pgh.pa.us> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Will it run on a portable? Date: 28 Nov 1995 02:59:28 GMT Organization: KY3B - Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 30 Message-ID: <49dtug$14q@ky3b.pgh.pa.us> References: <48endv$d0a@chronicle.mti.sgi.com> <48kprd$4jg@csugrad.cs.vt.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ky3b.pgh.pa.us Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.12 (X11; I; BSD/386 uname failed) X-URL: news:48kprd$4jg@csugrad.cs.vt.edu Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:1574 comp.os.linux.misc:72885 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:1419 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:9558 ceharris@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Carl Harris) wrote: >With FreeBSD we had to a heck of time just getting the OS installed >(the default console driver doesn't support laptop keyboards). Then, >we couldn't get past the same keyboard problem with X (despite quite a >bit of hacking at the pcvt driver and XFree312). I have been using FreeBSD (1.1.5.1 and 2.0.5) running on an AST PowerExec 4/25 for over a year. The keyboard was no problem. Running X with a mouse on the serial port was no problem. Using a kernel configured with the /dev/psm0 device (PS/2 mouse) did result in the keyboard freeze noted elsewhere - taking the port reset out of the driver fixed that, as also noted elsewhere. I am using the National Semiconductor PCMCIA ethernet card, which is identical to the IBM, and supported by the GENERIC kernel. I had previously run Mach 2.5 and 3.0 on a laptop (Compaq). I have had no experience with Linux. One minor annoyance with running *nix on a laptop - when the machine goes into "sleep" mode (may be called something else on other machines), and then wakes up, the *nix clock will be wrong. I added a small driver to the kernel to read the hardware clock (which doesn't go to sleep), and have a crontab entry to access this and reset the *nix clock every few minutes. This has been handy, as I leave the laptop on the local ethernet at night in sleep mode - it wakes up at 5 AM, and gets it's nntp feed from my other FreeBSD system, which has got its news via uucp by then. -Ken Mitchum km@ky3b.pgh.pa.us