Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 14:08:40 -0800 From: David Greenman <davidg@Root.COM> To: alan@wj.com (Alan Strassberg) Cc: questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: recommended hardware Message-ID: <199601172208.OAA00269@corbin.Root.COM> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 17 Jan 1996 12:52:48 PST." <9601172052.AA10945@wj-seg.wj.com>
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> Putting a new system together (news, www, the usual). CD-ROMs on way. > The FAQ doesn't mention tape backups - any support for > IDE drives or just be smarter to go SCSI. Same question for CDROM. > > I'm thinking ASUS P133 motherboard, 3C509B ethernet, Buslogic 946c, > but video/tape are unknown. Any pointers appreciated. I recommend getting a PCI ethernet card - they're a few dollars more, but much better supported in FreeBSD. Something with a DEC DC21040 - like an SMC 8432 (PCI "EtherPower"), Compex PCI/ENET32, or similar clone. The 3c509 support in FreeBSD is quite shakey at the moment. The Buslogic controller is well supported in FreeBSD, but you should beware that it has a long history of not working properly with certain motherboards. This is a motherboard/BIOS problem, no a FreeBSD one. The symptom is usually that the machine won't boot anything (even DOS). None of my 946c's work with the ASUS Triton-based motherboard (the one you're suggesting above). The alternative would be an Adaptec aha-2940, but only get this if you don't mind upgrading to "2.1-stable" after installing 2.1. The driver in 2.1 has numerous bugs that will cause reliability problems. We have IDE CDROM support, but the driver is known to not work with all drives. If you can afford the extra cost of a SCSI one, I definately would recommend that. -DG David Greenman Core Team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project
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