From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Mar 20 3:42:18 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from edwin.mounet.com (edwin.mounet.com [216.145.76.8]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id C93EA37B73D for ; Tue, 20 Mar 2001 03:42:14 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from hornback@wireco.net) Received: (qmail 26797 invoked by uid 0); 20 Mar 2001 11:26:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO tomcat) (216.145.67.15) by mounet.com with SMTP; 20 Mar 2001 11:26:23 -0000 From: "Andrew C. Hornback" To: "FreeBSD Questions" Subject: Hardware Compatibility... Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 06:43:26 -0500 Message-ID: <000201c0b132$f9d45fe0$0e00000a@tomcat> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Importance: Normal Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Mornin', Just wanted to see if anyone is running any hardware I plan to use in my "monster" workstation that I'm working on. Basically, I'm using a lot of good, quality standard parts... problem is, some of these parts don't exist in the current HCL. So, I thought I'd ask to see if there was anyone out there with experience with these parts: 1. I plan on using a Turtle Beach Cancun FX add-on for my SoundBlaster AWE 32 card. Eventually, I'd like to use this workstation to do some music composition, etc., and this was the best solution that I found that I could use with my AWE 32. Yes, I know it's an old card, but, it's got 32 Megs of Parity RAM onboard... which is more than I can say for the newest SB Live! cards. 2. I'm also planning on using a multi-serial adapter from Equinox, their Megaport 12CS card. Basically, this is an EISA (looks vaguely more ISA, IMHO) with a break-out box with 12 separate serial ports on it. I'm looking at adding a terminal or two, in addition to a couple of plotters, etc., and figured that this would be a good choice. This card appears to have SCO Unix/Xenix drivers available, along with HP/UX and AIX drivers. If there isn't currently a driver or a workaround for this card, just how hard would it be to write a driver for it? (I have all of the documentation that came with this board, if that would help any) 3. From a time when I was on the FreeBSD lists in the past, someone mentioned a Berkshire Watchdog board. After doing some research, I've decided that I would like to have one of these in my workstation, based on the idea that I may need to work on it remotely, and if it hangs up from a remote session, I would most likely need it to come back up. Since I learned about this item from the list here, I would assume that someone would have one and that it would be in use. The version that I am looking at purchasing is the PCI version. If anyone has any caveats or tips for use of this card, please let me know. 4. Since this is going to be a high performance workstation and I plan to use it to finish the curriculum for my Mechanical Engineering degree, I figured that a digitizer would be a good item to have. So, I picked up a CalComp 12"x12" tablet with the 4 button puck. This is a serial device, and while I haven't tested it, I would assume that it would work properly via a standard serial connector without a driver. Is there anyone out there currently using a digitizer with a FreeBSD box? If so, what kind of tips/tricks would you recommend when I finally install it? 5. Last but not least, I plan to connect my HP ScanJet 6200CSe once I get the workstation up and running. Since this scanner can use USB or SCSI, I was wondering if there would be an advantage of using one interface or the other. If I go with SCSI, it will be connected to an Adaptec AHA-2740. If I go with USB, it will be connected to an ADS Technology PCI to USB Adapter card, as per the HCL. Thanks guys, and I appreciate any feedback regarding these hardware choices. --- Andy To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message