From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Feb 1 23: 4:15 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 7685337B401 for ; Sat, 1 Feb 2003 23:04:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from jive.SoftHome.net (jive.SoftHome.net [66.54.152.27]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 9B46E43F3F for ; Sat, 1 Feb 2003 23:04:12 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from temperanza@softhome.net) Received: (qmail 25873 invoked by uid 417); 2 Feb 2003 07:04:07 -0000 Received: from shunt-smtp-out-0 (HELO jive.SoftHome.net) (172.16.3.12) by shunt-smtp-out-0 with SMTP; 2 Feb 2003 07:04:07 -0000 Received: (qmail 25853 invoked by uid 417); 2 Feb 2003 07:04:06 -0000 Received: from adsl-63-194-84-111.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (HELO dsl-63-194-84-111.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net) (63.194.84.111) by 192.168.0.6 with SMTP; 2 Feb 2003 07:04:06 -0000 Received: from tomoyo (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by Sat, 1 Feb 2003 23:04:03 -0800 (PST)dsl-63-194-84-111.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (8.12.6/8.12.6) with SMTP id h12743a2007526; Sat, 1 Feb 2003 23:04:08 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from temperanza@softhome.net) Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 23:04:03 -0800 From: La Temperanza To: Kris Kennaway Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Learning about other architectures Message-Id: <20030201230403.4e419daa.temperanza@softhome.net> In-Reply-To: <20030202011222.GA41196@rot13.obsecurity.org> References: <20030131235502.08f068c8.temperanza@softhome.net> <20030202011222.GA41196@rot13.obsecurity.org> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.8.9 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-portbld-freebsd5.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 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 Well, without X support it doesn't sound like my type of system, but hopefully it would mature while I'm scraping together a grand or two. The workstations you suggested seem reasonable on eBay. I used to be a Mac user, so I'm not completely spoiled by dirt-cheap hardware :) Hmm... the UltraSPARC II's nbench numbers don't look too great compared to some other non-x86 CPUs, though. I'm quite tempted by the 750mHz Alpha 21264 being able to match a Pentium 4 1.7gHz (impaired by Red Hat, unfortunately) in integer performance and an Athlon XP 1700+ like mine in floating point. However, benchmarks are pretty bogus- expecially under *NIX- and I'm not sure if the "Compaq C" that Alpha was compiling with is available for BSD or available at all. On Sat, 1 Feb 2003 17:12:22 -0800 Kris Kennaway wrote: > 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 > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message