From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 21 22:28:20 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5187216A420 for ; Tue, 21 Feb 2006 22:28:20 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kdk@daleco.biz) Received: from ezekiel.daleco.biz (southernuniform.com [66.76.92.18]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 35C7243D73 for ; Tue, 21 Feb 2006 22:28:14 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kdk@daleco.biz) Received: from [192.168.2.2] ([69.27.149.254]) by ezekiel.daleco.biz (8.13.4/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k1LMPiig038806; Tue, 21 Feb 2006 16:26:10 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from kdk@daleco.biz) Message-ID: <43FB935E.4090903@daleco.biz> Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 16:25:34 -0600 From: Kevin Kinsey User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20060127 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jeffrey Shi References: <000f01c636e1$b4544180$0b46a8c0@netdaemon.com.au> In-Reply-To: <000f01c636e1$b4544180$0b46a8c0@netdaemon.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: just driver question X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 22:28:20 -0000 Jeffrey Shi wrote: >Hi, I am new to freebsd. My question is for my >motherboard and VGA CARD to work with freebsd, >should I use linux driver or unix driver? The >freebsd I am thinking to install is version 6.0. > >Thanks > >Jeffrey > > Hi, Jeffrey, and welcome to FreeBSD. The answer to "should I use linux driver or unix driver" is: "neither". FreeBSD includes drivers that allow it to work on much of the hardware available today, as well as many "legacy" systems. It's generally not necessary to download or install any "extra" drivers (though a few are available); occasionally we do have to specifically instruct the system which ones to load, though. You *should* read this, though: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/hardware.html which includes a brief explanation and some links that should help you with your question. After reading these, you might come back and ask some opinions about your hardware; but, usually, FreeBSD Just Works(tm). There are "quid pro quos" ... internal modems without their own processor are generally not supported. There are, from time to time, reports of various bugs with some new hardware type that cause some problems (some SATA Raid controllers, lately, I *think*). Support for some rather old processors has lately been removed IIRC (*). And, one other alternative ... you could just back up your data and try it out. However, I'd really recommend that you study the Handbook (www.freebsd.org/handbook) a bit first. Unless you've used some Unix-like operating system before, FreeBSD can seem a little 'backwards' --- it's not, but the learning curve is a little steep to really get it to perform as a desktop system. That said, I converted my desktop system to FBSD in the fall of 2004 and haven't looked back. I've only found a very few things that I can't do just as well without paying my Microsoft tax..... YMMV. Kevin Kinsey -- It gets late early out there. -- Yogi Berra * I'm sure that I could be wrong and someone may correct me on this ... but there was some discussion, I'm quite certain, and little objection to whatever-it-was....