Suitable laptop for FreeBSD?

[Frank Staals]

On 03/03/10 14:48, Andreas Davour wrote:
>
> I am thinking of buying a new laptop, and want one which will work 
> fine with FBSD. Anyone have any suggestions?
>
> It must have a connector for a external screen (i.e. a projector when 
> doing presentations), wireless, ~15" screen, lots of memory, and 
> optical unit, and preferable a long battery time (i.e. CPU speed is 
> not that important).
>
> Webpages, own experiences or any other comparisons available?
>
> Please cc me if answering.
>
> /andreas
>
I am running FreeBSD (8-STABLE) on a Dell Latitude D630, and I'm very 
content with it. The D630 version has a 14.1" display, but I believe 
there is also a 15" version (which was called D830 if I recall 
correctly).  Out of the box support for wireless (wpi) , wired (bge) , 
cpu-throtteling (cpufreq), audio (snd_hda) and the display-dimming 
functionality. When I bought it battery lifetime was over 6 hours (with 
a 9 cell battery) when just using browser/e-mail client/ word-processor 
kind of applications. Now (I have this machine about 2.5 years now) it's 
still about 3 hours, and I use it every day for at least 3 or 4 hours.  
Suspend/Resume almost works; meaning it does actually suspend and 
resume, unfortunately both wired and wireless are dead after resuming.

Since I never use a external monitor I do not know if that works 
correctly or not. My version has an intel card but it is also possible 
to obtain a laptop with a nvidia GPU. For the external monitor stuff I 
guess the best bet would be an nvidia card. Anyway: the conclusion is 
that it may be a good idea to take a look at Dell's range of laptops.

Good luck & Regards,

-- 

- Frank