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Date:      Fri, 7 Jan 2005 09:46:23 +1100
From:      John Birrell <jb@cimlogic.com.au>
To:        Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org>
Cc:        FreeBSD mobile Mailing List <freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   Re: Experience with Dell Inspiron 1150 laptop?
Message-ID:  <20050106224623.GA55403@freebsd3.cimlogic.com.au>
In-Reply-To: <20050105062243.GO53273@wantadilla.lemis.com>
References:  <20050105062243.GO53273@wantadilla.lemis.com>

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On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 04:52:43PM +1030, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> I'm thinking of buying a Dell Inspiron 1150 laptop.  I have a number
> of Dells, and on the whole I'm happy, but I've had "issues" before.
> Can anybody who has one of these machines (1150 only, please) tell me
> good or bad things about it?  Have you been able to get the internal
> wireless card to work?

I have an 1150 and it works great with RELENG_5 for me. I don't have the
version with the internal wireless though. I use the bfe (Broadcom BCM4401)
ethernet. No problems with that.

If you get one, go straight to Dell's support site and get the latest bios.
I had to do that before X would work. There have been a few bios updates and
my 1150 was shipped with an out-dated bios which I thought lacked attention
to detail by Dell when they build the machines to order in Malaysia.

I got a CD R/W and DVD R and that works fine. USB2.0 ports function well
as does sound. Whenever I watch videos, I choose to use the 1150 for that.

Obviously the winmodem doesn't work with FreeBSD. That's the only device
that isn't recognised during boot.

Once thing I really like about it is being able to set the bios to boot
via the ethernet port. That makes net-booting FreeBSD for driver development
a breeze.

I run RELENG_5 installed on the hard disk and net-boot to CURRENT. If I
remember correctly, it took me about 10 minutes to get XP off it and FreeBSD
on.

-- 
John Birrell



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