All your laptops are belong to Windows.

[bsdnooby]

>If you have an HP or Compaq laptop, and you see this problem TRY the
>R3000Z patches.
>
>  
>
I tried a bunch of things to get my HP Pavilion to work, but I decided I 
would delay converting this machine until I know more about what I am 
doing.  FreeBSD 5.3 *does* install on another P3-650 laptop on which I 
just upgraded the HD from 10GB to 100GB.  My Pavilion is going to sit on 
a shelf  until it can boot FreeBSD.  The 100GB drive makes my old laptop 
suddenly usable again (as a primary machine). 

In hindsight, I should not have bought the HP, and it's too late to take 
it back.  Thats what I get for playing World of Warcraft on it for 30 
days under Windows.  My advice to anybody thinking of buying an HP 
laptop, is to not do it.  I bought the 100GB 2.5" drive for $200 at 
CompUSA, any old laptop that can already run FreeBSD can use one of them 
to become very useful again.

I also bought a FireWire card for my old laptop, and am hoping that  I 
will be able to use my external drives with FreeBSD (it worked under Win 
XP and Fedora Core 3).  I have about 4 external 160GB drives that can 
work on FireWire and USB2.  I  didn't have much luck with them on FC3 
using USB2, but they worked great under FireWire.  I am hoping FreeBSD 
5.3 will also work with FireWire.  Windows was just the opposite, USB2 
worked well and FireWire was flaky.

I'm sure I'll ask more about my FreeBSD install problems in the future, 
but for now, I'm going to learn using the machines that it works on.  By 
the time I'm comfortable with this OS, the problems will probably be 
solved.  I don't blame FreeBSD for any of this, it's the HP Pavilion 
that is weird.  Its the only machine I've owned where nothing could be 
changed within the BIOS  (like disabling HyperThreading).  The only 
thing I can change in the BIOS is the date/time.

thx


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