Thinkpads Forum

Just curious, being a hardcore Gentoo Linux user. I am using the perfect environment on my T42p, having it all up and running, especially:

- KDE 3.5.0
- ATI drivers with hardware-acceleration
- Wireless / Ethernet autoswitching (using ifplugd)
- Synaptics touchpad + trackpoint + USB mouse (all working at the same time, including additional buttons on mouse & special features on touchpad)
- Full IBM-ACPI support (kernel-module + acpi-scripts)
- Suspend to RAM & Hibernation
- Full set of power-saving-features (including laptop-mode, hdd-spindown, wireless powersave, SpeedStep ondemand cpu-govenor)
- Full fingerprint-reader support (for login using the bioapi + pam module)
- hdaps driver installed (but still lacks hdd head parking software)
- external ReinerSCT cyberjack pinpad USB smartcard reader (for online-banking and applying digital signatures)

I think, FreeBSD has the overall better concept (representing an OS, not only a kernel + better structure of development), but still lacks the necessary support for full desktop and especially notebook usage. So unknown hardware-support due to the lack of drivers is surely the main problem, on the other hand a lot of software is just only available for Linux (stuff not in ports).

Until now, I didn't try FreeBSD by myself, no time and no free hdd space on my notebook. And I really don't want to miss the mentioned features, so it does not look like, I will be able, to give FreeBSD a go anytime soon. Nevertheless I'll keep an eye on it, you'll never know, what the future brings.

Has anybody here the latest FreeBSD edition up and running on his ThinkPad? Really would like to read about some experiences, especially how to deal with lacking support of certain features.

...but have to find a good how-to or walk-thru (newbie...). Googled and found this one

http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~trep/tsrT40freebsd.html

but can´t figure out how to implement the Intel's integrated WLAN card using ipw. Can I just edit f.e. boot/loader.conf using a texteditor?

I´m using a T40p btw.

//Michael

I'm currently using 6.0-RELEASE on my A30p. It runs like a charm, and all hardware is supported. However, ACPI support leaves much to be desired, and APM doesn't work any more (or so it seems to me - might well be that I'm just too stupid to make ACPI go away and have APM take its place).
I'm thinking about going back to 4.11, only to get suspend/resume working again. Bugger.

cheers,
-- fish

doppelfish wrote:I'm currently using 6.0-RELEASE on my A30p. It runs like a charm, and all hardware is supported. However, ACPI support leaves much to be desired, and APM doesn't work any more (or so it seems to me - might well be that I'm just too stupid to make ACPI go away and have APM take its place).
I'm thinking about going back to 4.11, only to get suspend/resume working again. Bugger.

The ibm-acpi module should already be available for FreeBSD, as I have read somewhere. Can't help you with more info, but I know, that ACPI should not cause any problems with ThinkPads any more. Same should go for suspend/resume.

The normal features may be well supported by now, but I am still completely stuck concerning the fingerprint reader and the mentioned ReinerSCT cyberjack pinpad smartcard-reader. Although there are open source Linux drivers for both available, I could not find any info by now concerning the use in FreeBSD...

Master One wrote:The ibm-acpi module should already be available for FreeBSD, as I have read somewhere. Can't help you with more info, but I know, that ACPI should not cause any problems with ThinkPads any more. Same should go for suspend/resume.

Hmm, I'm loading acpi_ibm already ... still no dice ... prolly some stupid mistake on my side. Or it might just be that my machine is too ancient. Right now, my schedule is too tight to investigate this, tho' ...

cheers,
-- fish

There is plenty of new stuff in 6. Your own kernel is a must for a Thinkpad. And I suggest you take a little time and read thru both ../conf/NOTES and ../i386/conf/NOTES.

doppelfish wrote:I'm currently using 6.0-RELEASE on my A30p. It runs like a charm, and all hardware is supported. However, ACPI support leaves much to be desired, and APM doesn't work any more (or so it seems to me - might well be that I'm just too stupid to make ACPI go away and have APM take its place).
I'm thinking about going back to 4.11, only to get suspend/resume working again. Bugger.

cheers,
-- fish

I've been running 6.0 on my R32 ( I am actually typing this from KDE 3.4 in FreeBSD 6.0 ) - I have also ran 5.4.
I am having power management problems in 6.0 that I did not have in 5.4, even with my own kernel compiled for ACPI support. I have not yet gotten ibm_acpi setup on here, though. I currently am having problems with X being mysteriously killed when the battery might or might not be low. I never had this problem with 5.4.

ACPI support can be fine tuned.
Do man acpi and you'll see there is a number of ACPI features you can disable, leaving working features and ACPI support in general enabled.