Experiences with HP, Compaq?

[Chris BeHanna]

On Tuesday 23 December 2003 13:42, D. Michael McFarland wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> Occasionally I drool over the laptops in places like Best Buy,
> thinking, "If I had just one more computer, I wouldn't have to wrestle
> VMware...," etc., etc.  Lately, the prices and specs have improved to
> where I may finally be willing to put my money where my mouth is.  It
> looks like about US$1150 (less rebates if I'm quick about it) would
> get me either a Compaq Presario 2195US or an HP ze4560us, so I'm here
> to ask if anyone can support my pipe dream by affirming FreeBSD runs
> reasonably well on either of these machines.
>
> The specs for the two notebooks are nearly identical: AMD Athlon XP-M
> 2500+, 512 MB RAM, 40 GB HD, ATI Mobility graphics, USB, FireWire,
> CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive.  I don't expect the built-in wireless (11g) will
> ever work, but I'd like to know 100Base-T does.  "16-bit Sound
> Blaster Pro-compatible audio" could be anything, I suppose.

    For about that same price, Best Buy has an eMachines laptop w/17"
widescreen (1280x768) LCD, the same Athlon-M, and the same ATI video
chip.

    I have no idea if FreeBSD will run on it.  The wide screen is a
definite attention-getter, and the blue LEDs look pretty trick, too.

    "Dory, look!"

    "What?"

    "Something shiny!"

--
Chris BeHanna
Software Engineer                   (Remove "bogus" before responding.)
behanna at bogus.zbzoom.net
                 Turning coffee into software since 1990.