Inspiron 7500 + Linksys + FreeBSD 4 or 5?

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Friday, 11 June 2004 at 10:50:07 -0400, Timothy Luoma wrote:
> On 6/11/04 3:12 AM, "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at FreeBSD.org> wrote:
>
>> On Friday, 11 June 2004 at  2:53:28 -0400, Timothy Luoma wrote:
>>>
>>> I have a Dell Inspiron 7500 which is no longer my primary machine, therefore
>>> I want to use it to learn FreeBSD.
>>>
>>> I will be connecting to the internet via a Linksys Wireless Network PC Card
>>> WPC11 v3
>>>
>>> and was wondering whether folks would suggest FBSD4 or FBSD5 for this.  It
>>> will not be a production-level machine, however I'm new enough that if 5 is
>>> too "raw" then I'd be content with 4.
>>
>> I have both on my 7500.
>
> *LOL*
>
> Hrm.... I think if we checked, we'd find that you were a bit more skilled &
> familiar with FreeBSD than me :-)

Barely possible.

> Do you have the WIFI card working or know if it is supported under
> either/both versions.

I'm using an Orinoco card, and I have had no trouble with it.  I don't
expect problems with the Linksys.  I did have trouble (which I fixed)
with old Aviator (802.11 FHSS) cards, but they're obsolete 2 Mb/s
cards.  The problem there was that they need 56 kB I/O space (one
chunk of 48 kB and one chunk of 8 kB), and the 7500 only has 48 kB.  I
solved the problem by overlaying the memory areas.  I don't expect you
to have that sort of problem with other cards.

> I guess the remaining questions are:
>
> 1) Is there anything I can do w/ FBSD5 that I couldn't do with FBSD4 that
> I'd want to do?

It's generally more up to date.  It handles PCMCIA/CardBus cards
better.

> 2) Is the install process for one any easier than for the other?

No.

> Sent using the Microsoft Entourage 2004 for Mac Test Drive.

Hmm.

Greg
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