Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yarrina.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!solaris.cc.vt.edu!csugrad.cs.vt.edu!csugrad.cs.vt.edu!not-for-mail From: ceharris@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Carl Harris) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Will it run on a portable? Followup-To: comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Date: 18 Nov 1995 09:16:13 -0500 Organization: Virginia Tech Computer Science Lines: 45 Message-ID: <48kprd$4jg@csugrad.cs.vt.edu> References: <48endv$d0a@chronicle.mti.sgi.com> Reply-To: ceharris@vt.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:1534 comp.os.linux.misc:71826 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:1371 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:9264 Eric McCaughrin (meric@orac.mti.sgi.com) wrote: : I've got my eyes on a portable computer (Pentium-based). Has anyone : had success installing one of the IBM-compatible UNIXes on a : portable (Linux,netBSD,BSDI,freeBSD,etc)? The newest portables : seem to be based on the PCMCIA bus and from what I've read in : the web pages, this bus is not supported. I'm also worried : about the internal CD-ROM drives portables come with. Let me preface this by saying that I'm something of a BSD fanatic. I've got NetBSD running on my VAXstation II/GPX and Macinsloth II, and I've got FreeBSD running about 30 PCs in one of the labs I administer. But for a laptop with PCMCIA, I highly recommend Linux (at least for now). My department purchased a few IBM ThinkPads with PCMCIA ethernet cards. We tried both NetBSD and FreeBSD, but were really disappointed that we couldn't get everything working under either operating system. With FreeBSD we had to a heck of time just getting the OS installed (the default console driver doesn't support laptop keyboards). Then, we couldn't get past the same keyboard problem with X (despite quite a bit of hacking at the pcvt driver and XFree312). With NetBSD, we had no problem getting it installed, and getting X working wasn't so bad (though we ended up getting a later binary snapshot to get the silly trackpoint mouse working). However, the PCMCIA ethernet card isn't supported in 1.0A (nor in the later snapshot we were using). I ported the PCMCIA ethernet driver (for the 3C589C) from FreeBSD to NetBSD and it worked reasonably well (read "it only panics once or twice a day!"), although much of the PCMCIA functionality had been ripped out of the driver. With Linux, however, we were pleasantly surprised to find that with almost no fuss we got the system installed (using the ethernet card to install via the network), and everything worked (without any hacking on our part). Of course, FreeBSD and NetBSD will likely catch up in the near future (and when they do, we'll want to try them again), but at least for now, Linux seems like the better choice. -- Carl Harris EXECUTIVE Scapegoat (and Systems Engineer) Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech ceharris@cs.vt.edu