installing bsd on a laptop

[Joshua Tinnin]

On Monday 20 December 2004 06:46 am, Tom Vilot <tom at vilot.com> wrote:
> > NathanKelly31 at aol.com extolled:
> > > hello, do you know of any laptop brands that can run freebsd or
> > > openbsd that is available to purchase???
>
> I have FreeBSD 5.3 running beautifully on a Dell Inspiron 8200.

I have FreeBSD 5.3 running on a Dell Inspiron 3500. IIRC there weren't 
any problems with the install, but I had to compile in support for my 
cardbus and ethernet. Since it's just a 300MHz with 128MB, I didn't 
install xorg at all, but I know from previous experimentation that it 
will run a smaller wm or desktop alright (xfce4 or smaller), but KDE or 
Gnome run very slow. I don't really need a gui desktop on it, and it's 
(generally) quite fast without it. I am tinkering at getting the sound 
running, but it's not a priority. Haven't yet tried USB, but again it's 
not a priority. It works the way it is for my needs. You can probably 
find a used Dell in this model range for very cheap. I wouldn't go 
lower than the 3500, though, as lower than a 300MHz cpu might be 
pushing it as far as what you need.

As someone else recommended, IBM Thinkpads are quite nice and will 
usually work, although a bit pricey. If you go that route, try to find 
a good used one.

- jt