Fwd: installing NetBSD/amd64-current on a ThinkPad X201

["Pouya D. Tafti" <p.d.tafti%gmail.com@localhost>]

[wrong address...]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
To: netbsd-current%netbsd.org@localhost, netbsd-desktop%netbsd.org@localhost

[Sorry about cross-posting.]

Dear all,

I will be replacing my old laptop with a Lenovo ThinkPad X201 in the
coming weeks. ÂHere are the specs:

chipset: Mobile Intel QM57 Express
cpu: Intel Core i5-540M
graphics: Intel HD Graphics (GMA HD)
wifi: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200
hdd: 320GB 7200rpm
ram: 4GB

I must confess that I did look at alternatives to NetBSD for a
combination of reasons pertaining to software and hardware support,
but in the end this only reinforced my original reasons for switching
to NetBSD several years ago. ÂI therefore plan to install
NetBSD/amd64-current on the new laptop.

I have been away from NetBSD development and the mailing lists for a
while, and searches on the web led me to somewhat contradictory
information. ÂSo now I have a few questions:

1. Is the Advanced-N 6200 wireless adapter supported by iwn?
(OpenBSD's iwn seems to support it but I don't know if this has been
ported back to NetBSD).

2. Is the integrated Intel GMA HD graphics adapter supported in NetBSD
(with either native or modular X.Org)?

3. Is it preferable to install native xsrc from NetBSD/amd64-current,
or to go with modular X.Org from pkgsrc? Â(It seems that the latter is
not supported by many pkgsrc packages, cf.
<http://wiki.netbsd.se/Desktop_Phase_1>.)

4. What is the status of Linux compat on amd64-current? ÂI depend on
it primarily for browsing (Opera and the occasional Flash).

5. Related to 4, there seems to be a discussion about upgrading the
pkgsrc Linux emulation environment. ÂBut, for the time being, would it
be a Bad Idea to dump some recent distro under, say,
usr/local/emul/linux and symlink /emul/linux to it? ÂWould it envolve
too much work/tuning? ÂThe pkgsrc libraries seem to be getting too old
for some of my needs.

6. I installed a recent amd64-current system in VirtualBox using the
net installer. ÂFollowing a crash, I was no longer able to create new
users (the old ones were lost too) due to some issue with pwd_mkdb. ÂI
may have unintentionally corrupted something, but just to make sure,
has anyone seen something similar to this? ÂAlso, IIRC, the installer
did not ask me to choose the encryption method used for passwords,
unlike the NezBSD-5.0 installer.

7. Is there anything special about WAPBL or is it enabled by default?
Do I need an FFSv2 file system for it, or should I go with FFSv1?

8. Any other caveats?

Thanks in advance,
Pouya