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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.eng.convex.com!newsrelay.netins.net!solaris.cc.vt.edu!news.duke.edu!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!EU.net!sun4nl!cs.ruu.nl!edwin From: edwin@cs.ruu.nl (Edwin Kremer) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Which laptop? I checked WWW Date: 27 Dec 1995 16:39:43 GMT Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Lines: 45 Message-ID: <4brssf$40n@krant.cs.ruu.nl> References: <4bpig3$p5q@tempest.symnet.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: magic.cs.ruu.nl X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #7 (NOV) In <4bpig3$p5q@tempest.symnet.net> dnelson@core.symnet.net (Dru Nelson) writes: | [...] the real question is what is a good | laptop for FreeBSD and development and ethernet support. Well, you might want to have a look at the Linux laptop home page (No, no, no religious wars please!), which is at: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/ In general, many things to keep in mind when buying a laptop for FreeBSD are similar to those if your choice would have been Linux. E.g. the XFree setup depends merely on the video chipset, not the OS. Together wth the 2.1.0-RELEASE/HARDWARE.TXT file, you will be able to figure out what controllers to watch for (e.g. if you buy a laptop + docking station with builtin Ethernet controller and SCSI, and FreeBSD contains no drivers for these controllers, you're in trouble (unless, of course, you read device driver source during breakfast and write device drivers using 'cat > eth.c' :-)) Prepare a FreeBSD boot floppy and try to boot the laptop of your choice in the shop: it will give you a good idea about what supported hardware is in that laptop. Apart from any OS-es: TFT (active matrix) is great but expensive. Dual-scan and XFree don't seem to work out very well all the time. Pay attention to the keyboard (insist on typing at it for a while). If you plan to use it often whilst being disconnected from power mains, go for Li-Ion battery: they last longer, less weight, no re-charging `memory-effect'. (although 2 Apple notebook Li-Ion's exploded some time ago: seem to be pretty `hot' technique...) If you travel a lot: worldwide warranty might be nice. Memory: at least 8MB, more if you run X. Disk at least 500MB, quite some more if you want to have both FreeBSD and (is it ok to mention it here?) DOS/Windows on the disk. Currently, I'm running FreeBSD on a Compaq Contura 4/25 with 8MB. Depending on shipment I will have this machine replaced by a Toshiba 410CDT with 24MB this year or first week on January. My Ethernet card will be a PCMCIA/PC-card 3Com Etherlink III. best regards, --[ Edwin ]-- -- Edwin H. Kremer, systems- and network administrator. <edwin.kremer@cs.ruu.nl> Dept. of Computer Science, Utrecht University, The Netherlands [WHOIS: ehk3] -------------------- http://www.cs.ruu.nl/people/edwin/ -----------------------