From owner-freebsd-smp Fri Apr 3 09:46:33 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id JAA07636 for freebsd-smp-outgoing; Fri, 3 Apr 1998 09:46:33 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from panzer.plutotech.com (ken@panzer.plutotech.com [206.168.67.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id JAA07631 for ; Fri, 3 Apr 1998 09:46:31 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from ken@panzer.plutotech.com) Received: (from ken@localhost) by panzer.plutotech.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) id KAA03373; Fri, 3 Apr 1998 10:46:21 -0700 (MST) From: "Kenneth D. Merry" Message-Id: <199804031746.KAA03373@panzer.plutotech.com> Subject: Re: Multi- processor FreeBSD SMP In-Reply-To: <199804031624.JAA06333@jalapeno.eece.unm.edu> from "David A. Bader" at "Apr 3, 98 09:24:43 am" To: dbader@eece.unm.edu (David A. Bader) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 10:46:21 -0700 (MST) Cc: smp@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28s (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org David A. Bader wrote... > I'm looking to purchase a number of dual-Pentium II systems > (e.g. Dell WorkStation 400 with dual- 333MHz Pentium II processors) > to run FreeBSD SMP -current. > > Dell tells me that Intel makes a special motherboard just for > Dell. Has anyone had luck with this, or know where I can get a nice > university discount on systems which will boot FreeBSD SMP kernels? Well, I haven't had any experience with those Dell systems, but I do have some advice...:) You may want to wait until April 15th, when the 350 and 400MHz Pentium II's with the 100MHz front-end bus come out. They go along with the 440BX chipset. One thing that strikes me as odd in Dell's description of those motherboards is the fact that they have an on-board 3Com ethernet chip. I would think that if Intel is making the board, they'd put an 82558 on board. In any case, the 3Com ethernet thing is something to look at, since the FreeBSD's current 3Com support supposedly isn't all that great. (Although Garrett Wollman said on -current a few days ago: ===== Someone around here has (I think) volunteered to rewrite this driver from scratch, and is in the process of obtaining all the databooks and whatnot. -GAWollman ===== ) The Intel EtherExpress support in FreeBSD, however, is just fine. The good thing about the fact that Intel makes that motherboard (if indeed that is the case) is that most folks have had good success getting the SMP kernel to work on Intel boards. Ken -- Kenneth Merry ken@plutotech.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-smp" in the body of the message