FreeBSD and hardware??

[Wojciech Puchar]

> If you're thinking of trying out FreeBSD, then this is the right place to
> come.  A word of warning though: it's not at all like Windows, or even
> MacOSX.  You will be expected to learn quite a bit about the low level

MacOSX can run unix programs, but in every other respect is not like unix 
as you said.

> nitty-gritty of the OS in order to achieve the best results.  Of course,
> the "best results" are very good indeed, and in my humble opinion, well
> worth the effort required.
>
> Installing on laptop type hardware is a tricky proposition: it's very much
> luck of the draw whether your particular model has sufficient driver support

For FreeBSD supported laptops Lenovo as generally good choice.
Of course others may work too.

It's best to go to the shop and run LiveCD, check dmesg to see if 
everything is detected, check if it works, and then buy/not buy.

But yes - laptops have very often strange/nonstandard hardware.


> Driver support really is the kicker in all of this.  Apple MacOSX doesn't
> have this problem, since it only runs on Apple proprietary hardware.  If the

AFAIK it can be run on ordinary PC with simple patches. just because 
todays Apple hardware are just ordinary PCs, just with 2-3 times higher 
price ;)

> Even if Apple does have a driver for a piece of kit not already supported in
> FreeBSD, it cannot be assumed that Apple will automatically donate the code
> to the FreeBSD project.

BTW are there any drivers in FreeBSD source tree that was written by 
Apple?