4.x or 5.x for newbie install on laptop?

[Peter Radcliffe]

Timothy Luoma <freebsd at tntluoma.com> probably said:
> 	- a USB card reader for my digial camera [Olympus/Camedia MAUSB-10 
> xD-picture card reader]

Some work, some don't. More work these days than used to.

> 	- Windows formatted iPod (connects via Firewire PCCard).  I
> assume there is no way to use this under FreeBSD anyway, so I'll
> have to dual-boot to XP to use the iPod

My windows formatted iPod works just fine under FreeBSD with built in
firewire, PCI firewire or USB. I don't know about the firewire pccard.

> 	- External hard drive which also connects via Firewire (which
> I use for backups, but mostly there are just the mp3s from my iPod)

Should work.

> 	- USB CD-RW drive, which I also don't know if I can use under
> FreeBSD (Dell has a built in USB1 port)

Might work, there were changes pulled into 4-STABLE to help them work
better.

> 	So... thoughts?  I plan to download an ISO tomorrow.

IMO if you are not interested in hacking on the OS in some way then
5.x isn't ready for primetime yet. Depends what you want to do and if
you want to have to migrate later when it is ready.

P.

-- 
pir