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Date:      Fri, 20 Dec 2002 08:25:05 -0500 (EST)
From:      Mark Stosberg <mark@summersault.com>
To:        Roman Chudik <rchudik@mail.com>
Cc:        freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: How about FreeBSD on VIA C3 800A processor + VIA PLE133 motherboard
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.51.0212200758060.56672@nollie.summersault.com>
In-Reply-To: <20021220093128.37322.qmail@mail.com>
References:  <20021220093128.37322.qmail@mail.com>

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On Fri, 20 Dec 2002, Roman Chudik wrote:
>
> Please consult me about functioning FreeBSD on hardware :
> VIA C3 800A MHz processor;
> VIA PLE133 (8601A + 686B) based motherboard.

Hello Roman,

I'll tell how it worked for me with the VIA EPIA 5000 (533 Mhz), which
uses a nearly identical motherboard.

- FreeBSD had support for all of the components in the GENERIC kernel,
  which I was impressed with.

- I initially had some problems with the "vr" network interface driver
  hanging. There is a bug report and a patch for this here:
  http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=44572
  The patch works for me. I imagine this will appear in the FreeBSD code
  line soon (the next releases after 4.7 and 5.0), or you can use the
  patch here.

- I had a problem with a "mouse offset bug" with the "trident" video
  driver. Several people have reported this bug, where the mouse will
  sometimes become offset about a centimeter to the right of where the
  clicks are registering. It takes a power on/off to workaround it.
  Potentially this may be fixable in the XFree86 code. In the meantime,
  I'm using the recommended solution of adding "option SWCursor" to the
  "trident" driver area of the XF86Config file. The only difference I
  notice is that the problem has gone away. :)

  There are many mailing list posts about this on the net. One is here:
  http://lists.debian.org/debian-laptop/2001/debian-laptop-200112/msg00465.html

- To get my sound card to work, I added this /boot/loader.conf:
  snd_via82c686_load="YES"
  and rebooted.

- I'm still experiencing problems hard disk writes and my USB keyboard
  (I just posted to this list about this last night). I still don't have
  a clear enough picture about that issue to suspect where it might be
  originating.

- Someone wrote a driver called "viapm" which supposed to allow you to
  probe the motherboard for temperature, fan speed and other stats.
  I added support for this to the kernel, but couldn't get it to be
  recognized by the "xmbmon" program. I was just tinkering at this
  point, though-- you don't need this driver to work use the MB.


In summary, although there have been a few kinks, I think it's great
system-- it's small, quiet and cheap. If you haven't bought yours yet, I
might recommend this deal: The 933 Mhz model and a case for US $150:

http://www.computergate.com/products/item.cfm?prodcd=SD7FCR51@&bcodes=

  -mark

http://mark.stosberg.com/

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