What laptop do you recommend?

[Parv]

in message <20060314113412.3470fde5 at localhost>,
wrote Norberto Meijome thusly...
>
> On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:32:40 -0300
> freebsd at meijome.net wrote:
> 
> > I'm looking for a new, gruntier laptop. What laptop is known to work
> > WELL with freeBSD? e.g.:
> > 
> > ACPI with no problems (and as many features as possible)
> > PATA / SATA with no problems

I don't think Thinkpad has [SP]ATA things (yet).


> > all other basic stuff (graphics, NIC, Wireless g, sound,
> > touchpad ,etc ) should work too, of course

Thinkpad T42 is great in that regard, except that the use of dri w/
suspend/resume causes lockup.  You would need to pick either dri or
suspend/resume.

If you can, try to get a laptop either without a 802.11g (so that
you can decide which one to buy) or buy one supported by ath driver.
I have T42 w/ Intel 2200BG card, and it using w/ iwi driver
(net/iwi-firmware port).  Here, connected w/ Linksys WRT54G wireless
router/switch/AP, iwi interface|driver needs to be reset just about
every two hours (when i start getting "TKIP ICV mismatch on decrypt"
message.


> > Looking into either Intel duo Core or AMD64 chips.

Can't say about Thinkpad on that.


> > >From what I've read, IBMs seem to have quite good support, so
> > >do DELLs
> > (though they seem chunkier than other laptops). I usually get
> > Toshiba, but I don't think they are so well supported.

Boy do those Toshiba's "TruBrite" screen looked amazing (in a chain
store).  On almost all the displayed laptops, however, the keyboards
are buggered up, mainly on the right side.  Keys were shifted around
or had really unusual area of key caps.  What is amazing about the
messed up keyboard layout is that there was much wasted space on
the sides (owning to the wider screen) & in front of the keyboard.


> What about DELL laptops? any model I should stick to?

People generally advise to get one from "business" line (used to be
"Latitude" for some time in past; don't know about the
present/future), not the "home" one ("Inspiron").


> Thinkpads are a bit pricey for me atm.

T4[0-3]-generation should be affordable by now, around USD1[0-2]00.


> (Greg Lehey i think was using dells... could well be wrong...)

Yes, some Dell Inspiron.


  - Parv

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