Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 09:35:08 -0700 From: Nate Williams <nate@sri.MT.net> To: "Ron G. Minnich" <rminnich@Sarnoff.COM> Cc: hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: status of laptops? Message-ID: <199603141635.JAA09488@rocky.sri.MT.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960314104511.5846E-100000@terra> References: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960314104511.5846E-100000@terra>
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> i've been wandering all over freebsd.org looking for the laptop of > choice. There seem to be more questions than answers, so i thought i'd try > this list. I'm after the following: > 1) P90 > 2) 32+ mb ram > 3) long battery life -- two batteries if possible. 3+ hours would sure be > nice > 4) 800x600x8 > 5) ethernet card freebsd can deal with > 6) and of course the 28.8K modem NEC Versa 4000c. I have it on good faith that the X display works (from a Linux user unfortunately, but X is X.:), and they haven't changed anything on the machine except for the mouse and re-packaged it to be much different from my NEC Versa P. However, you won't be able to get 32MB of memory in it. They come stock with 8MB of memory, and you can upgrade it in 16MB chunks. I've got 24 in mine and it works pretty nice. The ethernet card to use is the 3C589C PC-CARD, which is supported in both -stable and -current (a minor patch to the driver in 2.1R was necessary to support the newer models). For modems, an external works today, and true PC-Card support should be in FreeBSD 2.2, or you can rely on the alpha PC-Card driver the 'BSD Nomad' folks have been releasing regularly, which is the basis of the code going into 2.2. This box also has an Ensonsic Sound System which can emulate a SB Pro on-board, and has one of the nicest displays available IMHO. And, if you want you can throw a CD player in it and mess with the ATAPI driver to make it work. (Again, I have it on good faith that the CD works with the Linux driver, so it is a generic ATAPI CD, and will work once we get our IDE CD driver working better). > multimedia not required. it's nice if it is available but if it messes > up 1-6 above i'll skip it. Anybody had any luck? is pc card support > really here? I *love* my NEC laptop, and it has all of the feature you asked for. Another great choice is the IBM ThinkPad 760 series. ThinkPad's are *much* more expensive, but are the most rugged of all the 'true' laptops on the market. Nate
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