Results: Dell Inspiron 8600

[Melvyn Sopacua]

Hi,

got a new Dell Inspiron 8600 today and here is the run-down for people looking 
to buy one:
* 5.1-RELEASE does not have the bfe ethernet driver. -CURRENT does, which 
leaves you with 3 options:
	* have a wireless connection available, cause the firewire nic is recognized 
	* use a bootcd from a more recent version
	* install 5.1-RELEASE and use the cd drive to copy over /usr/src from another
	  machine
* CURRENT also fixes a bug in acpi which you may see in 5.1-RELEASE, 
recognizable by the "Attempt to allocate zero bytes" message in ut_allocate
* If you're going to run X, you're looking for this, in the 'Monitor' section:
	HorizSync 30-120
	Option "IgnoreEDID" "true" # not sure this affects anything
	VertRefresh 40
	# wxga format display (one line)
	Modeline "1280x800"    108.00   1280 1376 1488 1800    800  801  804 1500 
+hsync +vsync

Open issues:
* no /dev/apmctl:
	Nov 24 01:25:37 sarevok root: /etc/rc: WARNING: /dev/apmctl not found; kernel 
is missing apm(4)
$ ls -al /dev/apm*
crw-rw-r--  1 root  operator   39,   0 Nov 24 01:25 /dev/apm
$ grep apmctl /sys/conf/NOTES /sys/i386/conf/LINT | wc -l
       0

As a result apmd does not start
* APM Capabilities reports 'unknown'

* nv driver from XFree86-4-Server makes screen unusable after exit. Messages 
on the XFree86-4 list suggest that driver does a better job, so I'm gonna try 
it.

Small issue:
Running mplayer to play a DVD still has a lot of 'black' stripes on top and 
bottom. In  theory, it should not be more than 40 pixels each (1280x720 == 
16:9 vs. 1280x800 screen res), but it's way more than that.

All in all: a good result.
--
Melvyn

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FreeBSD sarevok.idg.nl 5.2-BETA FreeBSD 5.2-BETA #2: Sun Nov 23 15:02:26 CET 
2003     root at sarevok.idg.nl:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/SAREVOK  i386
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