Re: New Laptop

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Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 11:09:20 +0930
To: Thanjee Neefam <thanjee@fastmail.fm>

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Long/short syndrome.

On Saturday, 26 July 2003 at 15:13:41 -0800, Thanjee Neefam wrote:
>
> I am considering buying a new laptop (my current one is a Dell Inspiron
> PII-233 without a CD Drive (it broke :( ))
>
> I just simply want to know if there is a particluar range of laptops that
> work better with FreeBSD. ie: they use totally standard quality hardware,
> no panic on installs, also good value for money.
>
> I have had all good experiences with my Dell Inspiron regarding
> FreeBSD, but the time has come to improve my hardware.

I have also had a number of Dell laptops and have been relatively
satisfied, so when the time came to buy a new one, I bought an
Inspiron 5100. I have just got it (3 days ago), and I've spent all
the intervening time trying to set it up. Problems include:

- The onboard Ethernet chip (Broadcomm 4400) isn't supported. A
  driver is under development, but the current version is very flaky.

- Out of the box, the system will freeze up if you put in any PCMCIA
  card. You can fix this one with the following entry in your
  /boot/loader.conf:

  hw.pci.allow_unsupported_io_range=1

  This problem also affects the Inspiron 5150.

- I can't get X to start. This problem does not affect the Inspiron
  5150. It appears to be a problem mapping the video BIOS, and I'm
  currently working on it.

- It's missing a lot of the legacy connectors, like serial and
  parallel ports and a PS/2 keyboard connector. This means that if I
  want to use an external mouse or keyboard, I have to buy a USB one,
  and I can't do remote kernel debugging with it. It also has no
  floppy, which is only a problem if you can't get the network to work :-)

On the plus side, the price is good, and it has firewire as well as
USB.

Greg

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