Re: Looking for a good DFly/BSD laptop choice

[Bill Hacker <wbh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jonathon McKitrick wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I wasn't in the market for a laptop recently, but I got a good pay review
> yesterday.  :-)
>
> I'd like something forward-thinking, if it isn't too expensive, but it MUST
> run DFly or at LEAST FreeBSD 4.x.  I was looking at a Gateway Athlon64, but
> I heard there are big problems with interrupt routing and BSD.

Laptops one should buy on proven performance and durability, not paper 
spec..

> I've been considering IBM ThinkPads.  What do you think?  I've heard they do
> well with *nix, and there's a bit of an IBM price premium, but that's all I
> know about them.

Thinkpad price premium is well earned, IMHO.  Durable, long among the
best keyboards and screens, good warranty service, especially if you are a
continent-hopper. Used by enough coders within IBM that most things
have available solutions.

Many have shipped with the flexible OS/2 boot manager pre-installed to
manage the recovery partition / primary OS partition, and that co-exists
well with *NIX and other OS. Very easy dual/multi-boot setup.

IBM's friendliness to Linux is also a plus for other NIX'en. Seldom
a shortage of drivers.

> Any advice?

'Contrarian' view.  But there is merit also to having at least one 
machine in
your arsenal that does NOT get used as a test-bed.  Something that can
be counted on to always work with printers, scanners, cameras, etc.  -
grab files off the 'net, keep things where you can find them, burn
CD / DVD, and generally be a key part of your 'working toolset'
and work storage - not the project target itself.

I use a PowerBook 17" with external FW-2 and USB drives for that.
Different 'race' of CPU helps keep my fingers out of it.

Has been twice round-the world, plus, and works anywhere there is
connectivity of one kind or another - often in the carpark of a Starbucks
after hours on a T-Mobile subscription.

Aside from replacing the HDD with a larger and better one, formatted UFS 
with
*BSD-style directory structure, I pretty much leave it alone.

Every other box within reach could be in any condition or OS from week 
to week.
And that can get frustrating....

HTH,

Bill