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Date:      Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:04:17 -0400
From:      "Jason P. Thomas" <jthomasp@gmualumni.org>
To:        Joe Demeny <jd1987@borozo.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Laptop advice
Message-ID:  <47E77CA1.9000401@gmualumni.org>
In-Reply-To: <200803210556.50743.jd1987@borozo.com>
References:  <200803210556.50743.jd1987@borozo.com>

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Joe Demeny wrote:
> I need to get a budget-priced laptop, such as one of these:
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834101123
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114430
>
> Does anyone have experience with these?
>
> Any suggestions for other comparable choices?
>
>   
 From personal experience, getting a laptop to work under FreeBSD (or 
even Linux) is a hair pulling experience.  It took me about six months 
of tinkering off and on to get a Broadcom(yuck!) wifi adapter to work in 
my HP laptop last year.  In the interim, I found a work around that was 
about $30.  I purchased a usb wifi adapter that used the rum driver.  At 
the time, I had to run -current to get that particular driver, but I 
never had a problem with the computer or the adapter under -current.  
The most headaches I've gotten with laptops have always involved the 
wifi cards.  Consequently, every laptop I've installed FreeBSD and Linux 
on had a Broadcom(yuck!) wifi chipset.  Everything else has been well 
supported, graphics, sound, power management, pointing devices, and usb 
devices.  I even managed to use FreeBSD to connect to the robots I had 
to use in one of my master's classes last year.  That was pleasantly 
surprising.

--Jay



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