FreeBSD 6.1 on the ThinkPad X60s

[Chris Howells]

James O'Gorman wrote:

> Does the wireless work under Linux then? I was thinking about trying the
> Ubuntu live CD to see.

There are drivers for Linux yes, from ipw3945.sf.net. However they have 
only fairly recently been released so are not part of any released 
version of Ubuntu yet (though they are part of the most recent Dapper 
Drake beta)

>>> * Dual-core CPU
>> Does CPU speed scaling work with both cores?
> 
> How do you check that? (This is my first non-Mac laptop...)

Load the cpufreq.ko module, either at the loader prompt, or by adding

cpufreq_load="YES"

to /boot/loader.conf

(and then rebooting)

Then when the kernel boots you should see a message stating whether the 
CPU has been recognised:

powernow0: <Cool`n'Quiet K8> on cpu0

... is the line from my AMD Sempron server.

If it is I guess you can try enabling powerd, something like

powerd_enable="YES"

in /etc/rc.conf

Followed by

/etc/rc.d/powerd start

Then the CPU frequency should be automatically reduced when the load is 
low to reduce heat and power consumption.

Then something like this should give you an idea if it's working:

[chris at sauron ~]$ sysctl -a dev.cpu | grep freq
dev.cpu.0.freq: 1800
dev.cpu.0.freq_levels: 1800/59000 1000/21700

(hopefully you'd see an entry for the second core also)

> I've just got GNOME installed and I can't get esd to run at all, so I'm
> guessing not. I've tried kldloading every sound module there is! Unless
> it needs one that isn't built by default...

I'd probably expect it to use the snd_ich.ko driver.

> Definitely ;-) I've been flipping between Windows and FreeBSD and the
> wireless is fine in XP.

Fair enough. Worth checking :)

> I'll try and have a play with it later, but for now, the light under the
> screen is off for both wireless and Bluetooth...

OK. I am pleased that the wifi and Bluetooth light both work under 
Linux, I hope the same with FreeBSD :)