From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Jun 9 21:40:24 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA08824 for questions-outgoing; Mon, 9 Jun 1997 21:40:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from adam.adonai.net ([205.182.92.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA08819 for ; Mon, 9 Jun 1997 21:40:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (leec@localhost) by adam.adonai.net (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id XAA21431 for ; Mon, 9 Jun 1997 23:41:30 -0500 (CDT) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 1997 23:41:30 -0500 (CDT) From: "Lee Crites (AEI)" To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Packard Bell Pentium 1570 compatibility Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk We have one of the above machines which came installed with Windoze 95. It is the p200, with 32meg ram, 2.1gig hdd, 1.44meg fdd, 4x cd-rom, multi-media junk, bus mouse, etc. I was using it as my workstation because I could get the drivers for my full-page scanner (Mustek MFC-600S) and printer (Canon BJC-620). It also came with a vidio interface I could just plug in my VCR to and grab avi/still graphics with. I was using it to build web pages and such. You might have noted the 'was' above. This was with reason. This puppy came with W95 factory installed. Each time I have reinstalled W95, it has become less stable. Even with PB's help, the last install was less than successful. It now crashes several times a week, sometimes several times a day. So... I'm ready to upgrade this box. I figured I'd go with NT (another windoze system), since it is more stable -- if that word can be used in relation to a M$ operating system without causing too much laughing. But while I was sitting here looking at the NT cd, I got to thinking... I *really* like my FreeBSD system. I *really* dislike my Windoze 95 system. I *really* didn't like the Windoze NT system I had to work on. Boy, wouldn't it be nice to just cut to the chase and load fbsd on my PB?!?!? Which is why I'm sending this question out. I'm thinking that fbsd 2.1 will load and run on the box, so that's not really the issue. What I'd like to know is if anyone else has made this jump. If so... * Could you get X running on it? * Were you able to get the MediaSelect interface to work? (Actually, I have no idea how this interface works with W95. Any clues?) * How about the sound card? video (vcr/cable/tv) interface? fax/modem? bus mouse? vdophone? music cd? If I put fbsd on this box, it will be a fbsd ONLY system, no dos/w95 booting. I don't mind losing some of my functionality here, depending upon what it is. I just want to know up front what I can expect. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Lee