Laptop advice

Joe Demeny jd1987 at borozo.com
Thu Mar 27 10:54:03 PDT 2008


On Monday 24 March 2008 06:04:17 am Jason P. Thomas wrote:
> 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?
>
>  From personal experience, getting a laptop to work under FreeBSD (or
> even Linux) is a hair pulling experience.  It took me about six months
> of tinkering off and on to get a Broadcom(yuck!) wifi adapter to work in
> my HP laptop last year.  In the interim, I found a work around that was
> about $30.  I purchased a usb wifi adapter that used the rum driver.  At
> the time, I had to run -current to get that particular driver, but I
> never had a problem with the computer or the adapter under -current.
> The most headaches I've gotten with laptops have always involved the
> wifi cards.  Consequently, every laptop I've installed FreeBSD and Linux
> on had a Broadcom(yuck!) wifi chipset.  Everything else has been well
> supported, graphics, sound, power management, pointing devices, and usb
> devices.  I even managed to use FreeBSD to connect to the robots I had
> to use in one of my master's classes last year.  That was pleasantly
> surprising.
>
> --Jay

Thank you all for your advice. I am familiar with the Hardware Notes. The 
problem is that from the specs it's hard to tell what is in the computer. The 
Gateway web site lists this under the specs: "Integrated Realtek 802.11b/g 
Wireless Networking" for "Wireless Network"; same for the Toshiba.

This is why I wondered if anyone has one of these laptops...

In the end, the best advice seems to be indeed to take the FreeBSD CD to the 
brick-and-mortar store...

-- 
Joe Demeny


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