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Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:12089 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:56255 comp.unix.questions:35139 comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit:3251 comp.unix.i386:7417 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!linac!mp.cs.niu.edu!fnnews.fnal.gov!dcdmwm.fnal.gov!mengel From: mengel@dcdmwm.fnal.gov (Marc Mengel) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.unix.i386 Subject: Re: UNIX on PC Laptops Date: 9 Jun 1993 18:47:42 GMT Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia IL Lines: 24 Distribution: world Message-ID: <1v5b8f$g6r@fnnews.fnal.gov> References: <1uod7j$pcl@binkley.cs.mcgill.ca> <1993Jun5.034832.7018@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: dcdmwm.fnal.gov I'm running 386bsd (with patchkit2.2) on my Tandy 4800 HD, which is actually a Twinhead portable, also sold by Compudyne. It's a 486SX/20MHz with 8M memory. I'm running XFree1.2 in monochrome (the Cirrus chipset in due 1.3 ought to let me run in full greyscale) On this platform the power-saving circuitry works pretty well; I run with the update daemon (that syncs the filesytem periodically) turned off; this keeps the disk spun down lots more. A little extra filesystem cache buys you a lot of battery life in my experience. The only annoying things are: 1) Built in trackball is a PS2 style trackball, I had to port a Linux driver to get it working, and then run a translator program to convert its output. It is kind of flaky (a software problem, under DOS/Windows the mouse tracks fine) and runs away across the screen from time to time, usually when you are in the middle of a button press (a missed interrupt problem??). 2) Serial ports are mindless uarts with no internal buffering; so I'm maxing out around 4800 baud on SLIP lines, over that and I lose frames, which takes my effective throughput back down to around 4800 on recieves. ------- Marc Mengel mengel@fnal.fnal.gov