FreeBSD 5.1-BETA2 (or -RC1) with IBM Thinkpad A30p !!!SOLVED!!!

[Jesse D. Guardiani]

Greetings list,

I had previously reported that FreeBSD 4.8-RELEASE, and 5.0-RELEASE
were the only versions of FreeBSD that I could get to successfully
boot from an ISO install CDROM. FreeBSD 5.1-BETA and 5.1-BETA2 did
NOT work. The kernel would hang (and give a db> prompt) right after
firewire was detected, and before some PCI stuff was detected.

This forced me to go with Debian "woody" Linux, since I couldn't
get ACPI/APM working in either of the -RELEASE branches. (And APM
does indeed work under Debian Linux.)

But I still followed the -CURRENT mailling list, hoping that someone
better versed with the 5.x branch of the FreeBSD kernel would have
the same problem I had and provide a fix/patch/workaround.

Yesterday, that day came! Thomas Girard had the same problem on a 
Sony VAIO PCG-GRX316G laptop, and he posted his workaround to the
list. It is a simple one-line boot loader statement:

set hw.pci.allow_unsupported_io_range=1

Seeing this, I IMMEDIATELY began downloading the latest ISO CDROM,
FreeBSD 5.1-RC1 and started the burn before I left work for the
evening.

In the morning, I eagerly popped the freshly burned CD out of the
tray, placed it in my IBM Thinkpad A30p's CD drive and rebooted.

It worked! And I actually think my ACPI may be working properly.
I didn't see any errors at boot.

So, when FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE is released, I'll happily return to
the proud ranks of the FreeBSD mobile crowd. I'll update the
FreeBSD Laptop page when that time comes.

Bye bye annoying messy Linux. See you later.

-- 
Jesse Guardiani, Systems Administrator
WingNET Internet Services,
P.O. Box 2605 // Cleveland, TN 37320-2605
423-559-LINK (v)  423-559-5145 (f)
http://www.wingnet.net