From owner-freebsd-mobile Fri Jun 29 9:45:35 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Received: from katrine.aae.uiuc.edu (katrine.aae.uiuc.edu [128.174.132.87]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C26E937B403 for ; Fri, 29 Jun 2001 09:45:26 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dmmcf@uiuc.edu) Received: (from dmmcf@localhost) by katrine.aae.uiuc.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id LAA22472; Fri, 29 Jun 2001 11:48:23 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: katrine.aae.uiuc.edu: dmmcf set sender to dmmcf@uiuc.edu using -f To: freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.org Subject: Advice sought on Dell C600 From: dmmcf@uiuc.edu (D. Michael McFarland) Date: 29 Jun 2001 11:48:22 -0500 Message-ID: Lines: 68 User-Agent: Gnus/5.090001 (Oort Gnus v0.01) Emacs/20.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org 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 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message