From owner-freebsd-newbies Fri Sep 17 8:22: 9 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Received: from joe.halenet.com.au (joe.halenet.com.au [203.37.141.114]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 268751582E for ; Fri, 17 Sep 1999 08:22:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from donh@halenet.com.au) Received: from igor (modem-123-st.halenet.com.au [203.55.33.123]) by joe.halenet.com.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id BAA27522 for ; Sat, 18 Sep 1999 01:30:07 +1000 (EST) (envelope-from donh@halenet.com.au) Message-ID: <00db01bf00bc$14a25da0$7b2137cb@igor> From: "Don Hansford" Cc: References: <199909171424.HAA07813@pau-amma.whistle.com> Subject: Re: it just goes on and on....... Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 13:23:56 +1000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org David Thanx for restoring my faith! Regards Igor Double your drive space - delete Windows! ----- Original Message ----- From: David Wolfskill To: ; Cc: Sent: Saturday, September 18, 1999 12:24 AM Subject: Re: it just goes on and on....... > >Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 17:35:34 -0700 > >From: Donald > > >gezzzz I installed Freebsd on my machine after running > >BSD/OS 3.0 for a few years and the install was real easy. > > :-} > > >First 3com in not a good choice for Freebsd, to many things > >to hassel with, PNP, interupts and so on. What you need is a real > >simple non-pnp ISA slot NIC card like SMC. > > As to the first point... well, from what I've seen, the basic issue is > that 3Com, in a practice which I understand is not all that uncommon > among PC hardware vendors, has a tendency to change things without doing > a very good job of notifying folks who might care. After all, as long > as they are supplying the drivers for the Microsoft platforms, who else > needs to know? So I agree with the conclusion that 3Com isn't ideal, > but (as you'll see below) I'd recommend PCI if you can swing it. > > As a case in point (re: 3Com), it's my recollection that the 3C905 Ethernet > NIC had both PIO (programmed I/O) and DMA (direct memory access) methods > of moving data between the CPU and the NIC. Well, 3Com apparently decided > to make a slight modification; the result was the 3C905B. The salient > modification as far as the drivers were concerned was that with the 3C905B, > DMA is the only way to move data between the system and the NIC. > > Since the (old) driver for FreeBSD was based on code for an older NIC > (that only used PIO), the 3C905B (first) wasn't recognized, and then > wouldn't work. And the folks who sell these things retail are not > always the most clueful around. (A 3C905B *must* be "better than" a > 3C905, right? It's newer.... Lesson: the latest & greatest is *not* > always optimal.) > > (Bill Paul, at Columbia University, came to the rescue -- again. Wrote > a new driver that used DMA that could be used for all the 3C9x5* cards. > BTW, he posts from time to time in -current, asking for volunteers to > test new drivers he's written. Merely reading some of those posts can > be rather educational: it provides a hint as to what goes on "under the > covers". Just make very sure that if you ever need to ask folks for > help -- especially Bill -- that you provide all of the necessary > information. His previous posts (in the archives) tend to spell out > rather explicitly just what kind of information he neds to diagnose a > problem.) > > >You should have installed DOS first, > > That depends a great deal on one's background. The FreeBSD boxes I > administer, both here and at home, run only FreeBSD. (The one I built > for my wife never had any Microsoft software on it.) That may well be > appropriate advice for the specific individual, but I encourage others > to take advice specific to one person's circumstances "with a grain of > salt" before applying that advice to their own circumstances. > > >got you nic cards working, > >disabled pnp, and had the machine all partitioned first. > >Sound card, video card and so forth. > > And if you use a PCI NIC, you don't need to deal with it all that much; > they just Do The Right Thing ("DTRT") -- thanks to the efforts of folks > like Bill Paul. I picked up a couple of NetGear 10/100 PCI NICs for $20 > each a couple of months ago; they seem to work just fine (though the net > where they are is 10 Mb/sec only). > > Cheers, > david > -- > David Wolfskill dhw@whistle.com UNIX System Administrator > voice: (650) 577-7158 pager: (888) 347-0197 FAX: (650) 372-5915 > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message