FreeBSD on an nVidia-based PowerBook G4 17" 1GHz

[Barry Hawkins]

List,
	Hello.  I have used FreeBSD on a x86 box I have at home and have been 
very pleased with it.  My primary machine is a 17" PowerBook G4 1GHz - 
the one with the nVidia card.  I have just spent the better part of my 
time away from work for two weeks trying to get a decent Debian 
installation on my PowerBook only to learn that the particular hardware 
components of this laptop don't bear much hope for running it.
	When I saw the traffic start to pick up on this list, I thought I 
would ask about trying FreeBSD on my PowerBook.  I must say that the 
initial install sounds daunting, but if I would be able to contribute 
to the effort by trying installs and documenting results or anything, 
I'd love to help out.  On PCs I have usually installed from ISOs that I 
get with my subscription at FreeBSD mall.
	I will list the items about this particular PowerBook model that are 
problematic for Debian, or more specifically, the Ben H. Linux kernel, 
and if anyone sees something that shouts "waste of time", please let me 
know.

The Problem Issues with a 1GHz 17" PowerBook G4
-The 100MHz bus
-The 1MB L3 cache
-The nVidia GeForce Go 440 card
-The Airport Extreme wireless card (Broadcom chipset)
-The USB software modem

	Thanks in advance for your time.  I noticed that there was a binary 
FreeBSD driver on nVidia's website for my particular card.  That 
shocked me.  Is there some reason that nVidia would come up with a 
FreeBSD binary and not a Linux one?

Regards,
-- 
Barry C. Hawkins
All Things Computed
site: www.allthingscomputed.com
weblog: www.yepthatsme.com