for the impatient, here is my XF86Config, dmesg, pccard.conf

FreeBSD 4.7 STABLE (BLEEDING EDGE) is loaded and works just fine with my Compaq Presario 900US laptop.

Below I will list what works, and what doesn't, for the most part it is functional but there are a few things that still need to be worked out.

Here is the stuff that does work:

1. Video Card - ATI Radeon Mobility (U1)
   • Detected as: "ATI model 4336 graphics accelerator" by dmesg
   • Runs at 1024x768@24bit in Xfree86 4.2.0 with 'vesa' driver
   • No accellerated support with the 'ati' driver yet
   • Also known as ChipID 0x4336, Radeon IGP, Radeon 7000, Radeon U1
2. Network Card - (RealTek 8139 10/100BaseTX) (rl0)
   • Detected as "RealTek 8139 10/100BaseTX" by dmesg
3. Sound Card - (Acer Labs M5451)
   • Does work fine, changed flags: hw.snd.pcm0.vchans=2, hw.snd.maxautochans=2 (/etc/sysctl.conf)
   • Does require an updated version of 4.7, a version from the CVS after 12/6/2002 will work.
   • See the FreeBSD handbook's The Cutting Edge section for more details on updating your system.
4. CDRW/DVDROM - Toshiba SD-R2102 (/dev/acd0)
   • burncd works for burning cdr/cdrw, erasing cdrw
   • mount_cd9660 /dev/acd0c /cdrom
5. Floppy Drive - (NEC 72065B or clone) (/dev/fd0)
   • mount_msdos /dev/fd0c /floppy
   • install mtools for quick and dirty copying (mcopy, mdel, mdir, mmd, etc.)
6. TouchPad - Synaptics Touchpad
   • Touchpad is a ps/2 mouse, use /dev/psm0
   • XFree86 version 4.2.0 supports multiple mice (older versions may too?) You can configure the touchpad as the default mouse for when it's not convienent to have an external one. The main InputDevice would be setup as the "CorePointer", the secondary would be setup as "SendCoreEvents" check 'man XF86Config' for more info.
   • Section of XF86Config for mouse config
7. External VGA port
   • Works out of the box, this port is automatically enabled unless it is turned off by the OS. Since FreeBSD doesn't turn it off it is always on if you need to hook an external monitor into the port.
8. Sony Digital Camera P1 - USB
   • The umass driver now supports my Sony DSC-P1 digital camera
   • Here is the messages entry for it.\
   • Mounts as: mount_msdos /dev/da0s1 /mnt
9. PCMCIA/PC Card slot
   • Forcing the PCMCIA to only using specific irq and io ranges has resolved the lockup issues
   • I added lines "irq 4 7" and "io 0x278-0x378" to /etc/pccard.conf
   • Be sure to comment out any irq/io lines in /etc/defaults/pccard.conf
   • My Sony Memory Stick adapter and Netgear MA401 wireless card both work with this configuration
   • The problem appears to be some particularly nasty PnP handling of the system that will cause strange things to happen. If you have any better memory ranges please let me know. These are just the ones that I guessed and they worked.
10. Firewire/IEE1394
    • Check out dmesg for the driver fwohci0 and firewire. I do not actually have a firewire device however it is loading without problems. I can't say anything about functionality though.

Now the things that do not work

1. Power Managment - FreeBSD 4.7 STABLE doesn't support the new standard ACPI for power managment. APM support is included but this doesn't work on this laptop.
2. Quick-keys for 'Internet,' 'Mail,' 'Search,' 'Music,' 'Volumn' -- Of course the Windows key doesn't do anything either, but nobody is complaining about that.
3. S-Video port - Currently the video card works via the VESA driver, this VESA driver doesn't know howto enable or disable the S-Video port and hence it does not work.

I have yet to play with the following hardware to either confirm or deny functionality.

1. Infrared port
2. Modem

Click Here for my dmesg results. This is with the latest CVS stable release of FreeBSD 4.7 (as of 12/6/2002)

Installation notes:

I downloaded the first FreeBSD 4.7 CD available from a mirror near you. After the CD was downloaded I booted to the CD and followed the handbooks installation help. Once the base system is installed and downloaded I aquired 3 files to help me update my system to the latest. You can download them here but they are simple to create.

First file to update you system is the cvsup console based updater. Next is a supfile to update the stable source tree, and then a supfile to update the ports tree.

Once you download the cvsup file you can install it by running "pkg_add cvsup-without-gui-16.1f.tgz". Once installed you can then update your /usr/src tree with the command "cvsup stable-supfile". You can update your /usr/ports tree with "cvsup ports-supfile".

Once you have updated your source tree you can upgrade your system and install the updates with the following.

If you are having problems with any of these commands please check out The Cutting Edge for more help. Please backup your data before trying any configurations, be smart instead of sorry.

If you have any comments or questions feel free to send me an email. Especially if you have any fixes for things listed under the section of things that do not work.