FreeBSD 4.5 on IBM Thinkpad T23

by Douglas De Couto (decouto@lcs.mit.edu), 1 April 2002. Basically it works fine. There were two things I had to do:
  1. Get a modified X server driver
  2. Patch the wi driver for the built-in wireless to work
  3. Paid for a sound driver
Also, I had to modify the kernel to enable the power management. I haven't tried using the DVD drive under FreeBSD.

X Server

Put this modified savage_drv.o into /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers. That binary was produced by someone else who added the proper SuperSavage support to X. You may also be able to get the drivers at http://www.s3graphics.com. Also search the web!. The modified XF86Config-4 file. Drop it into /etc/X11.

Wireless

I modified if_wi.c and if_wireg.h in /usr/src/sys/i386 to incorporate changes from the latest FreeBSD CVS tree and NetBSD patches I found on the net to support the built-in wireless device. Apply those patches and rebuild your kernel as per the FreeBSD handbook. My config file: THE-BEACH. This includes the small changes to get power management turned on. Note that when booting with the new kernel, if you try to manually load it in the bootloader, while using some other kernel as the default, it might not boot right. So make the new kernel the default kernel and let te machine boot automatically, that should work. See the bug report.

Sound

I paid $25 for a driver from http://www.opensound.com. I don't know what the state of regular FreeBSD sound is, if you object to paying....