Suitability of Sony VAIO laptop for FreeBSD?

[David Wolfskill]

Last Saturday, my laptop (a Dell Inspiron 5000e) apparently stopped
working for the last time.  (Ugly mode of failure -- won't stay powered
up (even via AC adaptor) to complete a boot sequence; usually doesn't
even get as far as illuminating the screen.  I suspect either thermal
stress on the CPU, a crack in teh system board, or bad RAM -- and I
tried swapping the RAM, to no avail.)

I see that Fry's is advertising a Sony VAIO with the following
characteristics (none of which is a model ID, of course) for $1100:

* 2.8 GHz P4 CPU
* 15.4" WXGA screen ("TFT With XBRITE Technology")
* 512 MB DDR SDRAM
* 60 GB disk
* CD/RW/DVD-ROM combo drive
* Integrated 802.11g
* 10/100 NIC & v.90 MODEM
* ILink (1394) & Memory stick slot
* Some M$ "software" that I fully intend to ignore

I suspect that it also has a plausibly reasonable audio component,
though that isn't critical for my primary intended uses.  The
illustration that accompanies the ad shows a "touchpad"-type pointing
device, which should serve OK for me.

I do tend to do a lot of "make buildworld" (and friends) type things on
a laptop; that may have contributed to the demise of the i5ke mentioned
above.

One of the "scarce resources" that I tend to value in a laptop is screen
"real estate" -- my eyes work reasonably well, and I prefer
higher-resolution screens.  The 1400x1050 of the i5ke was OK, but a
little cramped.

I would expect that with a 2.8 GHz P4, it would suck a battery "dry"
rather quickly; this would be a rather negative attribute.  The ad
didn't indicate the number or nominal run-time for batteries.

Any warnings as far as running FreeBSD 4.x or 5.x (or 6) on such a
beast?

Thanks!

Peace,
david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill				david at catwhisker.org
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