FreeBSD on Sony or Dell? Or stick with Toshiba?

[Azamshul Azizy]

Julian Stacey wrote:
>>off with Toshiba, which has been known to be 'other OS friendly'?
> 2 Toshibas I've known have been not friendly: Only way into BIOS
> was via a DOS floppy. No Ctll Alt Del, Alt F2 !  Not what I call
> `friendly', (but one did run FreeBSD, other was not mine to try).

I second this. I own a Toshiba Satellite 5005-S504, and there is no
access to the BIOS, other than choosing the boot medium. There is a
system password function, but it can only be changed by Toshiba's own
software that currently run only in "the other OS".

-stable boots fine, but ACPI is buggy. Sound didn't work, and I'm still
tring to get it to squeek for almost a year now. If someone has any
success with this laptop's audio, please inform me. Other than that,
it's a fine Redmond-centric laptop. -current's default kernels provided
in the .iso won't boot and I can't find enough time to play with it.

I see IBM Thinkpads have a lot more success stories. But if only they
could make it cheaper, I would have had a better FreeBSD life.

Azamshul Azizy
part-time rock star