From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Feb 1 17:12:25 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0E5C937B401 for ; Sat, 1 Feb 2003 17:12:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from obsecurity.dyndns.org (adsl-67-115-74-80.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net [67.115.74.80]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5D96343E4A for ; Sat, 1 Feb 2003 17:12:23 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from kris@obsecurity.org) Received: from rot13.obsecurity.org (rot13.obsecurity.org [10.0.0.5]) by obsecurity.dyndns.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E0F7467C38; Sat, 1 Feb 2003 17:12:22 -0800 (PST) Received: by rot13.obsecurity.org (Postfix, from userid 1000) id AE321908; Sat, 1 Feb 2003 17:12:22 -0800 (PST) Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 17:12:22 -0800 From: Kris Kennaway To: La Temperanza Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Learning about other architectures Message-ID: <20030202011222.GA41196@rot13.obsecurity.org> References: <20030131235502.08f068c8.temperanza@softhome.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="+QahgC5+KEYLbs62" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20030131235502.08f068c8.temperanza@softhome.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org --+QahgC5+KEYLbs62 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 11:55:02PM -0800, La Temperanza wrote: > I'm pretty uninformed, so tell me about some of the alternatives to x86. > Will I be able to match or improve performance/stability/etc as a home > UNIX user? non-x86 hardware tends to be more expensive (supply and demand), but you can pick up good cheap second-hand equipment on ebay. e.g. a sun ultra 30 goes for about US$200, an ultra 60 for about $400 (watch a few auctions to get a sense of the price fluctuations before buying). If you want something as fast as the latest x86 CPUs expect to pay MUCH more. > How is sound and graphics support (since I listen to music, > watch DVDs in mplayer and like to play the occasional 3D game)? Are > there any other caveats I should know about? FreeBSD/sparc64 does not yet have console support (e.g. no X), but for any PCI-based machine you can just use ordinary PCI cards. Non-x86 platforms have not been as widely tested, so you may run into caveats (e.g. some network drivers do not yet work on sparc because they are written non-portably). Kris --+QahgC5+KEYLbs62 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE+PHB2Wry0BWjoQKURAmyIAKCZAqKsA6Nc+wT7d878QEkAeFcZCgCg+zSD TDv3MAzpTmRSTW/4YKJc91U= =qpHg -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --+QahgC5+KEYLbs62-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message