From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 26 12:42:34 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CC5C01065670 for ; Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:42:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from stapleton.41@gmail.com) Received: from hs-out-0708.google.com (hs-out-0708.google.com [64.233.178.246]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8BDB38FC34 for ; Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:42:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from stapleton.41@gmail.com) Received: by hs-out-0708.google.com with SMTP id m63so3056728hsc.11 for ; Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:42:33 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition; bh=BUNjurIA1jtnhpB7uEDs9bOMbenT8GUyRCWvRKCFwH8=; b=Lh11iCSlocLS2CobvcS6c6WqwdBt8mGrOGF9AdhhskBKj1+60MBPDKQsGaSh1Xu4uoeLN1Y4J2wQWlJWlJlpEi7xY57glUhnBOV0U8Chn2YC9vo9bWisqgWoxpPRbKucZJyFMmx7a+s1aHlM6qsiA4VvtPNifc+yCgtIbPF1UdU= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition; b=MD36JNmjv66Tt9vHQgYc1ty7nNRY5Z2lZb4TDNP1Eu7Cx05ier0Z36hHRSUGdN3eGG78Cpq3A1CnQhK4J9yCaJr/5ODbV54vaxTl6ydDfCq8jS0bK4nExmsbIaNUFUvczM4ju0DWAPEHER07nGA6Pv718i5T4TxQBcRex54E9BM= Received: by 10.101.69.10 with SMTP id w10mr25101511ank.68.1206535353287; Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:42:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.100.151.7 with HTTP; Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:42:31 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <80f4f2b20803260542u4666d1c6wafd59d69f323c93@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:42:31 -0400 From: "Jim Stapleton" To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Subject: RE: desktop dominance X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:42:34 -0000 > I have had Linux for a long time. I have a different desktop coming > that I am eager to play with FreeBSD on. It is a dual processored > Intel Xeon @ 3.2ghz (64-bit). How are HP workstations with FreeBSD? As already said by another user, most things won't be too bad, but vendors use a lot of different hardware. The things I'd recommend. 1) Read the handbook, like every other piece of documentation, it's not all-encompasing, but it's one of the best I've seen. 2) In my experience, you are most likely to run into "interesting quirks" with sound, pcmcia/pccard, and USB/Firewire, in that order. I've not used raid. Most other things seem to work fairly well out-of-the-box. These all may take some set up and manual install. In the release notes, you can find hardware compatibility information, but it does not seem to be all inclusive - it's more of a "if it's here, it will/wont work as described, if it's not, your mileage may vary". I would take whatever OS it comes installed with, and get the chipset information on the following out of the driver/device configurations, if you don't know initially, or can't get them elsewhere: 1) Video 2) Sound 3) Network 4) USB controller 5) SCSI/ATA/RAID controllers (unlikely to cause issues in my experience, but certainly not unheard of) 6) North/South bridge (unlikely to cause issue, but better safe than sorry)