6/6     Does anyone use FreeBSD on laptop for daily use? I'm thinking
        about replacing my iBook w/ a ToughBook or a ThinkPad b/c I
        need to occasionally dual book Windows and I want to get an
        idea of how well FreeBSD works on laptops before I do this.
        I'm open to Linux but based on my experiences at work, I just
        don't think I can get along w/ it for personal use on a daily
        basis.
        \_ Be very careful about your choice of Thinkpads.  I have used
           4.10-R beautifully on an X20, but had no end of trouble getting
           it running on an X31.  There are plenty of FreeBSD-on-Thinkpad
           pages, though.  For hardware quality, they're great.  Drop me
           a mail @my other address (in my .plan) if you need some hints.  I
           found that Debian is actually very nice in terms of usability as
           well as wireless support (some Prism stuff under FreeBSD is a bit
           b0rked, but it depends on what you intend to do with it.)  One of
           the main problems I've seen with TPs is that ACPI is just weird,
           and Atheros card support can be spotty under FBSD.  -John
        \_ Is Linux an option? Linux has a plethora of drivers for
           wireless available through ndiswrapper. Sleep and hibernate
           also work if you tweak the kernel. Is there a compelling
           reason to stick with FreeBSD?
           \_ FreeBSD-stable-5 has ndiswrapper. - danh
              \_ Which is shit if you're trying to do passive sniffing.  -John
                 \_ How so?  can't do AP/monitor mode?
                    \_ Don't believe so.  You shouldn't need ndiswrapper
                       unless there are no native drivers available.  This
                       is often the case with some Atheros cards, although the
                       madwifi package is getting there.  -John
                       \_ ditto for centrino
           \_ But how many piM-qatas does it have?
           \_ I'm just more comfortable w/ {Open,Free}BSD, but I guess
              I could go back to running Linux.  My main problem w/
              Linux was that I could never keep track of patches, &c.
              and everything needed some sort of "unofficial" patch
              in order to run and I just got tired of having to keep
              everything patched in order to keep it running.
        \_ If you want to be able to do passive sniffing, you can do this on a
           Powerbook with an Orinoco (Prism chipset) wireless card and KisMac.
           KisMac actually installs its own drivers when you start it up, and
           removes them when you quit.  It's pretty slick. -dans
           \_ Auditor--http://www.remote-exploit.org  -John
              \_ But does it run natively on OS X?  I saw that they offer a
                 Knoppix LiveCD, which is nice, but I'd just as soon not
                 reboot. -dans
                 \_ It's no longer Knoppix based, and it's a whole liveCD
                    package--imho the single best security/wireless analysis
                    toolkit I've seen.  For a good single passive scanner you
                    want Wellenreiter (Kismet derivatives are good too.)  I
                    understand that Max is going to release a usb key bootable
                    Auditor versionsoon.  -John
        \_ Atheros cards work nicely on my thinkpad in linux.  Haven't had
           a need to try wireless sniffing, but many docs suggest this works
           \_ Some cards are great.  Some are ass.  Mine (8511?) has enormous
           \_ Some cards are great.  Some are ass.  Mine (5211) has enormous
              amounts of trouble.  -John