Natively Supported Notebook

[Joshua Lewis]

Does FreeBSD have any officially supported laptop?

I have been researching FreeBSD for two years now and I do not know why (I
have never successfully installed and used the OS. Having tried well over
40 times) but I want desperately to use it. Now I know there are going to
be a lot of *nix veterans reading this thinking “Two years! What are you
an idiot!”? Well I am not. Just busy with three kids a wife who would
rather I be with her then in front of the computer. I don’t have the $$ to
go buy new hardware every time I want to install a new OS and I know my
problems boil down to unsupported hardware. I have great computers but
they are not supported. That sucks so badly.

First system – Current primary desktop
Asus A7N8X Deluxe (nForce 2)
XP 2500+
Onboard LAN (unsupported)
MSI nVidia Gforce4TI 4400
1GB Corsair memory
80GB Western Digital Special Edition(not that that is important)

Second System – Currently sitting on the floor collecting dust
Abit A7n-MAX2
ATI 9500 (I think it has been a while since I built that one. Did they
make a 9500?)
512MB (Don’t remember the brand of memory)
2 80GB Western Digital Special Edition(not that that is important)

Third System – Running Windows 2000 as my web server
MSI K7n420 (nForce 1)
512MB (Don’t remember the brand of memory)
onboard video (nForce)
onboard LAN (unsupported)


So I have been trying for the longest time to set up a Server and a
workstation. I am thinking of purchasing a notebook (I really like the
Alienware Area 51 notebook) and want to have a dual boot system to run my
business. My ultimate goal to not need to pay the outlandish MS licensing
fees.

Am I on a quest to fail?

Does anyone have a recommendation (other then a bullet) of a good system
that I can continue to develop on (I know a notebook is not the best dev
platform. But I spend so much time on the train with my commute the time
is just wasted)?

So there is my scenario. I hope some one has a helpful suggestion. Heck I
am willing to BBQ up the best ribs you have ever had to anyone in southern
California willing to come over to help out (not likely I know)


Thank you,
Joshua