Notebook recommendations

[Kevin Oberman]

> From: Christopher Hilton <chris at vindaloo.com>
> Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 10:50:46 -0400
> Sender: owner-freebsd-mobile at freebsd.org
> 
> Well, my notebook was stolen last night so after 3 years with my  
> Gateway it's time get something new. I'm looking for recommendations.  
> The features I'm looking for are:
> 
> 
>       XGA graphics at a minimum of 1280 pixels horizontal and 960  
> pixels vertical. 1400x1050 is perfect
> 
>       Pentium M processor for battery life 1.6 GHz ~ 2.0 GHz
> 
>      Ability to do 3D Video acceleration would be a plus but isn't  
> strictly necessary. XDAMAGE would be a double      plus.
> 
>       A real serial port is a plus as I occasionally have to boot the  
> odd sun workstation.
> 
> Any suggestions are welcome.

I have not specific recommendations, just some things to be aware of.

Many new laptops have High Definition Audio (HDA) which is not yet
supported by FreeBSD (although several driver patches have been floated
that work on some systems and not others).

Get at least a Pentium-M or, better still, a Core-Duo. Much better
performance and battery life than older Intel chips. I have no
experience with AMDs in laptops, but I believe the newer Turions might
be pretty reasonable, too.

The odds of a working modem are pretty slim. Wireless is also a problem
as many systems including any with "Centrino" A/B/G support are
probably Intel 3945ABGs which are currently unsupported. Most laptops that
are ordered (as opposed to bought at a store) are available with
Atheros wireless which works very well. b/g cards are often supported by
iwi which requires at least -stable to have a good chance of working
properly. 

Other common wireless cards are Broadcom which can usually be cajoled
into working with ndis.

Serial is often available on "port replicators" or mini-docks, but is
very rare on the base unit. USB-Serial devices work well and are fairly
cheap (about $25US.)

Graphics can be a problem. DRI can be especially difficult on newer
systems. Radeon is pretty well supported, but you need to install
radeontool from ports to deal with turning the display on and off.
nVidia support is a bit less stable and often VESA mode seems to be the
only good way to use them.

In general newer laptops are likely to work best with -stable or
-current, but current is NOT for the faint of heart. It just gets new
device support sooner than -stable.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634
Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4  EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751