Is There Any Buyable Laptop for FreeBSD 9.1 That Is Simple to Set Up?

[-Edwin Hale]

I have been looking for ages for a simple system on which to do the following:-

a. Unix-Based.
b. Do Programming in C. (I like gedit if possible).
c. Xfce as GUI.
d. Production Work:-

1. OpenOffice (not LibreOffice).
2. The GIMP.
3. Inkscape.
4. Something with CAD and 3-D Rendering.
5. Film and Sound Editing.
6. Databases: PostgreSL, MySQL, and db2.e. 
7. Internet Work, including uploads to my website with FTP, my web host using the latest version of Apache.

f. Good Graphics and Media.
g. Good wireless connectivity through an external hotspot - currently using Sprint (not the best or the worst) 3G (more reliable than 4G) OverdrivePro but may upgrade when something better appears.

If I did not have to travel a good deal, I should be content with a desktop computer, but cannot escape from laptops.

I have tried many versions of Linux and some of the offshoots of FreeBSD, and only FreeBSD and DragonflyBSD seem close to what I think is best. FreeBSD wins because DragonflyBSD is just too esoteric at the moment.

After over a month of effort, I freely confess that installing FreeBSD 9.1 is beyond my capability. I have a Toshiba Satellite L755 with 32-bit  Intel® Core™ i3-2350M CPU @ 2.30GHz × 4 Processor at the moment, and this is nowhere mentioned on any list of FreeBSD-capable laptops that I can find. Indeed, after ruthlessly searching the web and talking to dozens of people, none of whom have any close experience with FreeBSD, it seems that there are very few laptops which are capable of trouble-free installation of FreeBSD. In the case of my Toshiba Satellite L755, I believe that the wireless driver is not friendly to the idea. As I currently use Ubuntu 12.10 (native - wiped it in attempted to instal FreeBSD 9.1, and then re-installed after failure of said installation of FreeBSD), I ran the following command and received:-

$ lspci | grep Network
02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (rev 01)

And, running

$ iwconfig

produces

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"OverdriveProA1F"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.422 GHz  Access Point: 84:DB:2F:35:9A:1F   
          Bit Rate=18 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=70/70  Signal level=-40 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:8   Missed beacon:0

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

And this:-

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b4)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 6 (rev b4)
00:1c.6 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 7 (rev b4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM65 Express Chipset Family LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 04)
02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (rev 01)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR8152 v2.0 Fast Ethernet (rev c1)

Well, the installation of FreeBSD floundered at the configuration stage of the GUI, and then stopped at the command line when the ports could not be installed because of lack of connectivity.

Oh, well - no need to waste time discussing this because my present computer is not good enough in other respects for what I should like to do.

Therefore, my question is ultimately:-

Is there any 17"64-bit laptop that will readily support FreeBSD 9.1 with wireless connectivity to an external hotspot?

Many thanks.