Experiences with HP, Compaq?

[D. Michael McFarland]

Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd at online.fr> writes:

> I've been using linux on an HP ze5385us, which looks like a similar
> machine to your HP except it has a Pentium-IV, everything works fine.
> I just installed FreeBSD 5.2-CURRENT on it, it mostly works but here
> are the caveats:
>
> 1.  With FreeBSD 5.2-RC1 and ACPI enabled, the touchpad (psm0) is not
>     detected.  (This is what kept me from using FreeBSD on it for a
>     long time.)  However, this is fixed by a recent commit by Nate, so
>     upgrading to 5.2-CURRENT should work.

The more I read, the more it appears I'd better plan to run -CURRRENT
for a while.  Oh well, I always wanted an excuse....

> 3.  The builtin wireless (wi0, prism2.5/intersil chipset) is detected
>     fine under FreeBSD, I haven't tried using it yet.  It works fine
>     under linux.

This would be nice, but I have a Cisco card I can fall back on.

> 7.  The ATI Mobility (listed as a 4x AGP, detected by XFree86 as IGP
>     340M) works fine with the vesa driver, but you don't get the X
>     Video extension then.
>     [...]
>     I'm hopeful XFree86 4.4.0 will fix this

I can wait, as long as X works in some mode in the mean time.

> Because of the touchpad issue I've been using linux on it, but at
> present, enough of the laptop works under FreeBSD that I can use it
> regularly I believe, and hopefully remaining issues will get fixed
> soon.

I ran Linux for several years, then switched to FreeBSD and was
generally happier.  Was forced back to Linux so I could run VMware and
thus Windows, but keeping up with Linux can be a chore, and
non-Windows license management around here becomes ever more
challenging.  I'd like to dedicate one machine to Windows and the
proprietary apps I have to use, and return to FreeBSD on the other(s).
But maybe portable hardware is just too, er, diverse for this to be a
reasonable course.

Many thanks to those who've replied, on the list and otherwise.

Michael