Laptop advice

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Fred C
> Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 4:48 PM
> To: Derek Ragona
> Cc: Joe Demeny; freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: Laptop advice
> 
> 
> On Mar 21, 2008, at 6:48 AM, Derek Ragona wrote:
> 
> > At 04:56 AM 3/21/2008, Joe Demeny wrote:
> >> I need to get a budget-priced laptop, such as one of these:
> >>
> >> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834101123
> >> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114430
> >>
> >> Does anyone have experience with these?
> >>
> >> Any suggestions for other comparable choices?
> >
> > I would choose the Toshiba, much better quality and support.  You  
> > may want to look at Lenovo's too.
> >
> > In a laptop I would look at the graphics if you plan to run X.
> 
> In laptops you want to look at everything. If one of the chipset is  
> not supported or badly you cannot like on a desktop change a component  
> by an another.
> 
> You want to go here http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.0R/hardware.html  
> and search if every component of you laptop is supported.
> 

Unfortunately, it is quite common for laptop vendors to write specs
that use different names than industry standard for the components,
so it is difficult to figure this out in advance.

What you want to do is get yourself a FreeBSD boot CD then go
visit a computer vendor that has display models.  Do not order a
laptop online.  Visit a brick and mortar vendor, and try booting
fbsd on each of the display models.

Ted