Recently, I got a new Dell Inspiron 5000 laptop (see dell.com), and I immediately decided to install both FreeBSD and Windows 98 on it. Although it was not hard for me to install both OSes, it did take me a while to figure how to get X working.

Of course, I have sought help from online resources. There is a page on using X on Dell laptops at http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~steveh/inspiron/, but there is no information about using FreeBSD on the Inspiron 5000. I also tried comp.windows.x.i386unix without much luck. I figure it may be worthwhile to share my experiences with other FreeBSD users, since people are always complaining about the lack of documentation.

Well, here is my story. It has three parts. Part I outlines the basic steps used to install FreeBSD and Windows on the same laptop. Part II outlines the basic steps used to get X running under FreeBSD. Part III contains miscellaneous information.

Part I - Install Windows 98 and FreeBSD 4.0-RELEASE

I decided to install Windows 98 first, because I had read somewhere that Windows will wipe out boot records created by other OSes. So I decided to play it safe.

1. Use the Microsoft boot floppy to boot the laptop, and choose "start the computer without CDROM support". Run FDISK to devote 25% of the 12GB disk to C, 35% of the disk to D (extended partition), and the rest will be used for FreeBSD.

2. Reboot (make sure you boot off the floppy again), and this time choose "start the computer with CDROM support". Before bootup, insert the Windows 98 CDROM. The CDROM should now be recognized as logical disk E.

3. Go to the E:\WIN98 directory. Run FORMAT to format drives C and D, which were partitioned in step 1. After doing this, go to the root of drive E, and run SETUP. The Windows 98 install should now be underway.
   
   Note: You should remove any PCMCIA cards when installing Windows 98.

4. After installing Windows 98, press F2 to enter the BIOS, and set the boot sequence to try CDROM first. Boot from disc 1 of the FreeBSD CD set, and installation should begin. In the fdisk-like menu of sysinstall, do NOT touch the FAT and extended partitions. They are used for drives C and D (Windows). You should install the boot manager when asked.

5. The boot manager (Booteasy) can boot both Windows and FreeBSD. Press F1 to boot Windows (shown as DOS), and press F3 to boot FreeBSD. If you do not press anything, it will boot the last OS that was active.

Part II - Setting up X

After much trial and error, I have finally been able to get X running.

Insert disc 1 from the FreeBSD CD set if it's not already in the drive. Log into the system as root, and do the following:

• Run /stand/sysinstall.

• Choose Configure.

• Choose Distributions.

• Choose XFree86.

• Under Basic, I chose All.

• Under Server, choose the server that supports your video card. See the XFree86 web site for a list.

• Under Fonts, you can choose what you wish to install.

After installing X, you can now configure it. From the main sysinstall menu, choose Configure, then choose XFree86. I use XF86Setup.

Choose your mouse, video, monitor, and modes. Then save your configuration.

sysinstall then asks if you'd like to install a window manager. You're not required to do so at this point, but you can if you wish.

Part III - Some Final Words

Dual-boot configuration is really easy. Our administrator has used LILO and System Commander with Partition Magic to boot Linux and FreeBSD on the same machine, but I feel FreeBSD's boot manager is just fine.

Remember, there are only four primary partitions on a PC or laptop. This means that you can have at most four OSes installed on the same machine.

I did not use the suspend-to-disk mechanism provided by Dell, because it may destory your file systems if used with a boot manager. Since I'm using Booteasy, I decided to play it safe and not use it.

Comments are welcome!

- Zhihui Zhang

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