It's rather unusual the FreeBSD doesn't boot on Thinkpads just now. I put FreeBSD 3.4 on my cousin's brand new Thinkpad just this summer and, as I understand it, her model (an entry-level celeron) is virtually no different than the newly-renamed boxen. So, logically, there are two options.
1. IBM has altered the hardware of the Thinkpad just slightly, but in such a manner that maliciously causes the normally rock-solid FreeBSD to hang on boot. 2. It's a software change. FreeBSD 4.x may be the culprit. Any time you have major kernel changes (as there were between 3.x and 4.x), particularly with subsystems like PCMCIA, there may be some incompatibilities.
So, should IBM go out of their way to support FreeBSD? Sure. It's a heck of a lot better than the buggy, bloated mess of WinME that they have to go through hardware certification hell for. But, let's be real here, FreeBSD has very low market share outside of the server space, and IBM doesn't have to be fair to FreeBSD just 'cause I say so. Now, as Linux and FreeBSD 3.x still boot (even though they're not officially supported, imagine that!), I say that the easy solution to this problem is good old-fashoned kernel hacking, using the old 3.x tree for reference.
IBM aren't the bad guys for not "officially" supporting free Unices. They aren't the bad guys even if they inadvertently killed FreeBSD booting. BSD has survived clashed with far more malevolent corporations that this (AT&T being the most obvious example).
A Recent Change (Score:2)
It's rather unusual the FreeBSD doesn't boot on Thinkpads just now. I put FreeBSD 3.4 on my cousin's brand new Thinkpad just this summer and, as I understand it, her model (an entry-level celeron) is virtually no different than the newly-renamed boxen. So, logically, there are two options.
1. IBM has altered the hardware of the Thinkpad just slightly, but in such a manner that maliciously causes the normally rock-solid FreeBSD to hang on boot.
2. It's a software change. FreeBSD 4.x may be the culprit. Any time you have major kernel changes (as there were between 3.x and 4.x), particularly with subsystems like PCMCIA, there may be some incompatibilities.
So, should IBM go out of their way to support FreeBSD? Sure. It's a heck of a lot better than the buggy, bloated mess of WinME that they have to go through hardware certification hell for. But, let's be real here, FreeBSD has very low market share outside of the server space, and IBM doesn't have to be fair to FreeBSD just 'cause I say so. Now, as Linux and FreeBSD 3.x still boot (even though they're not officially supported, imagine that!), I say that the easy solution to this problem is good old-fashoned kernel hacking, using the old 3.x tree for reference.
IBM aren't the bad guys for not "officially" supporting free Unices. They aren't the bad guys even if they inadvertently killed FreeBSD booting. BSD has survived clashed with far more malevolent corporations that this (AT&T being the most obvious example).