Simplify, Please

[bumbler]

Somebody call security! There's an idiot loose on the forums!

Okay, after all my fun with FreeBSD, you would think I might not be too lost, but NetBSD remains a complete cipher to me. I can't find any nifty books which bring it down anywhere close to the "clueless" level. The NetBSD manuals and such are obtuse, and assume a level of expertise somewhere above me.

Can I get a little guidance? Even if only a mere outline. I have tested NetBSD 5 in the form of the Jibbed Live CD, and it runs much faster then FreeBSD could on my laptop. Comments I've seen scattered across the Net indicate this is the norm, in terms of comparison. So maybe I can get this thing to sparkle again.

The machine in question is my Dell Inspirion 4100 laptop. We got 1Ghz CPU, half-GB RAM, Radeon M6 graphics, and native display of 1440x1050. Wifi cards are based on Atheros 5212 and RTL 8180. There is almost no current Linux distro left which will run this thing faster than a crawl. Etch is about to die next month, which is what it has now.

I'm looking at low-end desktop and console use. I know NetBSD can be recompiled to display what I want, but I have a hard time getting past the initial setup. The documents are loaded with server-oriented instructions, and I can't seem to filter out what I need. I'm willing to do the work, and to learn, but not via endless experimentation.

As a side note, I am aware of the NetBSD Desktop project, but this assumes more machine than I can get. I'm willing to run IceWM and forget the fancy multimedia stuff. I don't mind the manual mount/umount stuff. It just has to work, and sometimes on the console, but I can't function long with 80x25, since my laptop makes that just a small patch in the middle of the screen. I can initially connect via onboard 'ex0' (3Com950c) for installation through my home router.

Anyone got time and inclination to lay out the pertinent details?