free bsd on laptops

Wed Aug 4 11:59:07 UTC 2010

Hi ,

Thanks david for your  detailed reply.

I hope these would work in a bsd laptop:

ATI or NVIDIA graphics card
hibernate or suspend functionality
touchpad
built in wireless card  mostly  Intel dot11 N wireless cards
datacard ;make qualcomm (bsnl evdo mmx 300 )

thanks,
Mubeesh

On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 4:52 PM, David Wolfskill <david at catwhisker.org>wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 04, 2010 at 03:25:41PM +0530, Mubeesh ali wrote:
> > Hi ,
> >
> > I am looking for suggestions on buying laptops for exclusively  running
> > free bsd .  Please advise  if we should specifically avoid certain
> wireless
> > or graphics cards  which have less or no support in bsd, Any good vendor
> > suggestion  with good bsd support for hardware will also be helpful. As
> of
> > now i am running free bsd in vmware to learn it.
> >
> >
> > Please excuse if this was a wrong mailing list or if this was not an
> > appropriate question here. This is my first email to the list.
>
> The match between topic & list is fine, but you will likely get better
> results if you list (and prioritize) requirements of which you are
> aware.
>
> I'll list below some thoughts I've had on *my* requirements for a laptop
> that runs FreeBSD exclusively, so you have a startinig-point.  I don't
> expect that your requirements will match mine, but the list should help
> you get started on thinking in terms of your requirements:
>
>        Requirements for laptop
>
> * Only OS on it will be FreeBSD, so FreeBSD needs to run well on it.
>
> * Physical screen resolution of at least 1600x1200.
>
> * Needs to be capable of using 2 batteries at the same time (so a
>  battery may be swapped out while it's running), which must be
>  initerchangeable.  It would be best if it were to drain one battery
>  before switching to the other.
>
> * Needs a touchpad-type pointing device.
>
> * Must be able to be configured to remain active with the lid closed.
>  And must be able to cool itself adequately during a "make buildworld"
>  with the lid closed -- with a suitable -j value for the machine in
>  question.
>
> * Primary critical workload is rebuilding FreeBSD & ports; a machine
>  that is faster at this is better than one that is slower (other
>  things being equal).
>
> * Need a working port for serial console.
>
> * Prefer built-in wlan & wired NICs.
>
> * Prefer working DRI.
>
> * Should be quiet in normal operation.
>
> * It would be nice if devices attached via a docking station were
> usable.
>
> Background: My laptop is my primary "desktop" (i.e., user-facing)
> environment; other machines I use are normally rather more focused
> on specific applications, while the laptop runs everything I'm
> interested in.
>
> My "present laptop" is somewhat of a nebulous concept, as it started out
> as a Dell Inspiron 8200, and I've been "maintaining" the hardware by
> buying
> used, working laptops (one Inspiron 8200; one Dell Latitude C840) and
> cannibalizing/swapping parts -- with an occasional supplement from new
> commodity parts (RAM; disk drive) or purchased spares (keyboard -- I
> wear them out).  It has:
>
> * 1600x1200 screen (UXGA)
> * CPU: Mobile Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 - M CPU 2.40GHz
> * ATi Radeon RV250 [Mobility FireGL 9000] rev 1 video (as a daughter
>  card) with 64MB video RAM.
> * A serial port that I had used as a serial console until I fried it.
> * Samsung CD-RW/DVD-ROM SN-324B/U101> CDRW drive
> * disk: 114473MB <FUJITSU MHV2120AH 000000A0 supports UDMA100
> * wlan is miniPCI iwi0: <Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG> (at the moment)
> * wired NIC is xl0: <3Com 3c905C-TX Fast Etherlink XL>
> * Has both trackpoint & touchpad
> * Has 2 PCcard slots
> * 1 Firewire port
> * 1 external monitor port
>
> Under FreeBSD 4.x (yes, I've had (an instantiation of) it since
> before 6.x was branched), I could be running FreeBSD, and pressing
> the chord Fn+F1 would bring the machine into the "BiOS setup" mode
> (asme as hitting F2 early in boot sequence), and escaping from that
> allowed FreeBSD to continue running.  That hasn't worked since 6.x
> -- probably a result of ACPI vs. APM, I'm guessing.
>
> Under FreeBSD 6.x (IIRC), devices (disk drives; PCI devices) on the
> docking station were also recognized, but that didn't work under
> 7.x or later last I checked (several months ago).
>
> The laptop seems to lose its mouse now & then; I hacked around this by
> setting the HOOKRESUME & INITAFTERSUSPEND flags in device.hints, so if
> it looses the mouse, I suspend (to RAM), then resume -- and the mouse is
> back.
>
> Also, unlike my desired configuration, the current laptop appears to
> drain the batteries (if more than one is available) concurrently, thus
> minimizing the probability that a battery may be safely swapped when
> it's low and the machine is running.  (I suppose I could hack around
> this by normally only having a single battery available, and when it
> gets low -- assuming(!) that I realize this at an appropriate time --
> plug a fresh battery in the other bay....)
>
> Further, I have the laptop configured to boot from each of its 4
> slices, and each slice boots a version of FreeBSD.  For a while, I
> had the slices booting:
>
> 1 FreeBSD stable/6 (6-STABLE)
> 2 FreeBSD stable/7 (7-STABLE)
> 3 FreeBSD stable/8 (8-STABLE)
> 4 FreeBSD head (9.0-CURRENT)
>
> I also have private mirrors of the FreeBSD SVN and CVS repositories
> on it (updated overnight), and track changes to the versions of
> FreeBSD that I run on a daily basis.  I also update the installed
> ports on a daily basis.  (I only have one instantiation of each
> port installed, under the lowest-numbered version of FreeBSD that
> I run.  I depnd on the misc/compat* ports to be able to use the
> ports under later versions of FreeBSD.)
>
> About 3 or 4 months ago, I stopped tracking stable/6, and no longer
> run it.  I expect that within the month, I will stop tracking (and
> running) stable/7, as well.  (The big hold-up there will be rebuilding
> all of the ports under stable/8:  it takes a long time to do -- I
> have about 870 ports installed, some of which take a long time all
> by themselves.)
>
> The approach allows me to compare behavior of different versions
> of FreeBSD on the same hardware, which I find useful.
>
> I generally start the builds early in the morning; it is usual for
> the final build (that of CURRENT) to continue as I begin my commute
> into work.  With the exception of 2-5 days/month (when I have evening
> meetings or the like, so I drive in), that involves a car ride down
> to the train station (10 minutes), catching a train (20 minute
> ride), then catching light rail (23 minute ride), then walking for
> a few minutes -- door-to-door, about an hour if all goes well.
> During this time, the laptop:
>
> * Is nearly always entirely on battery power.
>
> * Is running -- indeed, it's doing things such as "make buildworld",
>  which uses battery power a bit more rapidly than most typical
>  desktop-type applications.
>
> * Is subject to a fair amount of jostling and vibration.  If I ever get
>  around to cycling part of the way, it's likely to be subject to a
>  great deal more vibration.  And I wouldn't be able to damp the
>  vibration with my hands (for example).
>
> * Needs to be able to shed excess heat -- while being protected against
>  the above-cited vibration.
>
>
> [And att this point, I'm still pretty much stuck with using my old
> laptop -- I can't find a new one that even meets the screen-resolution
> requirement for me.]
>
> Peace,
> david
> --
> David H. Wolfskill                              david at catwhisker.org
> Depriving a girl or boy of an opportunity for education is evil.
>
> See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg<http://www.catwhisker.org/%7Edavid/publickey.gpg>for my public key.
>