From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Apr 10 8:50:21 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from edwin.mounet.com (edwin.mounet.com [216.145.76.8]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id B08DA37B75C for ; Tue, 10 Apr 2001 08:50:06 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from hornback@wireco.net) Received: (qmail 32660 invoked by uid 0); 10 Apr 2001 14:51:40 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO tomcat) (216.145.67.94) by mounet.com with SMTP; 10 Apr 2001 14:51:40 -0000 From: "Andrew C. Hornback" To: "Salvo Bartolotta" Cc: "FreeBSD Questions" Subject: The big hardware discussion (was: RE: BSDi Acquired by Embedded Computing Firm Wind River) Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 11:07:40 -0400 Message-ID: <004c01c0c1cf$fc45d580$0e00000a@tomcat> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 In-Reply-To: <986837767.3ad1f3075e017@webmail.neomedia.it> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Importance: Normal Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Salvo > Bartolotta > Sent: Monday, April 09, 2001 1:36 PM > To: Ted Mittelstaedt > Cc: Duke Normandin; freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG > Subject: RE: BSDi Acquired by Embedded Computing Firm Wind River >=20 > > Many's the time I've seen people complain that FreeBSD didn't = support > their pet Wonkulating Gronkulator and that Linux did - and after you > get into it with them, it always seems to come out in the discussion = that > their Wonkulating Gronkulator card costs $14, and the card that = FreeBSD > _does_ support that does the same thing, costs $25. (and is = technically > a better card) >=20 > BTW, I have been applying the following Rules Of Thumb: >=20 > 1) do NOT buy the cheapest hardware out there (without good reason); > 2) do NOT (usually/normally) buy the most expensive hardware out = there; > 3) gnothi sauton^W^W know your hardware & buy it at a trustworthy=20 > shop/whatever. While these are wonderful tips, I have one that I follow that may be a = bit easier to follow. Basically, I look at what is on the list of = supported hardware, and see what has been in circulation for a couple of = years and compare that to the number of complaints/problems that people = have using it under FreeBSD and use that to decide what I'm going to = use. =20 Using this strategy, I've changed the hardware build defintion that I = keep for my machines to fit, and especially my major workstation = machine. I was all ready to run out and buy the newest and best (?) = video hardware and sound hardware until I got to looking at things. As = it turns out, I'm specifying a pair of Oxygen GVX1 cards and a pair of = SoundBlaster AWE 32s (with 32 Megs of Parity memory each) for that = machine. You're almost always hearing about people with problems with = other sound cards even the newer SoundBlaster cards on here, but any = problems with the older AWEs? Nope. =20 Basically, my advice is this... don't reinvent the wheel, and don't be = the first to immediately adopt new technology if slightly older hardware = will get the job done just as well and without the gray hair. --- Andy To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message