Date: 29 Jun 2001 11:48:22 -0500 From: dmmcf@uiuc.edu (D. Michael McFarland) To: freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.org Subject: Advice sought on Dell C600 Message-ID: <m3ofr7ut9l.fsf@katrine.aae.uiuc.edu>
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Hello All,
I'm contemplating the purchase of a notebook, and believe I've
narrowed the field to the Dell Latitude C600. (At least, that's what
I seem to come back to every other day, after reconsidering my needs
and the latest gee-whiz machine any of my friends has acquired.) I'd
like to ask this group about the details, with the goal of taking the
machine out of the box and getting FreeBSD installed with a minimum of
fuss. I don't want to tarnish the image my colleagues have of free
Unix (or pull my hair out), and it's been some time since I really
knew the state of the art in hardware. I'll happily run STABLE, but I
don't want to have to run CURRENT.
By way of background, I should state (admit?) that I do mostly
numerical work using some open-source tools plus Matlab and
Mathematica, spend most of my time in an editor, and make the
occasional presentation using TeX to generate PDF. So display size
and quality are important, but I don't need anything fancy. Sound is
a minor consideration, but it would be nice if I had some hope of
getting it working.
Here are the specs of the machine I'm leaning toward, grouped more
or less as they appeared on Dell's config page:
PIII, 850 MHz, 14.1 inch XGA display
256 MB SDRAM, 2 DIMMS
10 GB HD
MS Win 98 (the cheapest alternative)
24x CDROM
8-cell Li-Ion battery
This comes to $1991.96 with the higher-education discount.
Attractive options are
256 MB RAM as 1 DIMM (+ $45)
20 GB HD (+ $71)
CDRW (+ $230)
Go on, talk me into 'em.
Conspicuously absent above are a NIC and/or modem. That's
because, of all I don't know about notebooks, I don't know the most
about those. I'll need 100BT ethernet and some reasonably standard
modem, but I don't know which if any of Dell's options are usable
under FreeBSD. Briefly, Dell offers what are described as
Internal 3COM Mini-PCI NIC/Modem Combo (+ $70)
Xircom RealPort CardBus Ethernet 10/100 + Modem 56 (+ $203)
If either of these would work, great (as I understand it, CardBus
support is Not Done Yet), but I wouldn't be too disappointed if I
have to slap in a Xircom PC-card modem/NIC, if someone could recommend
a model.
I'm willing to work to get this machine going, but I'm spending
someone else's money here and I need to be sure that what I buy will
run FreeBSD within a fews days of receipt, or I may find myself facing
an MS splash screen way too often. Any and all advice is welcome,
especially about anything I seem to have overlooked.
Michael
--
D. Michael McFarland, Ph.D.
Visiting Senior Research Scientist
Department of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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