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From: wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu (Bill Paul)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: Supported PCI cards (System Spec)
Date: 23 Feb 1995 23:31:42 GMT
Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research
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Daring to challenge the will of the almighty Leviam00se, Aaron Kent Moore
(aakmoore@ucs.indiana.edu) had the courage to say:
: I'm writing a spec for a new unix box for our department (I'm presently
: running linux). I'm looking for a good PCI ethernet card, and a PCI SCSI
: card. I'd be running freeBSD. And the box would be a 100MHz Pentium
: (probably from Gateway) with ideally 64-128MB of RAM.
: Has anyone had any problems with boxes from Gateway?
: Thanks.
: Aaron
The image lab here at the CTR recently purchased two Gateway Pentium 90Mhz
PCI machines with 32 megs of RAM. They seem to have embedded IDE disk
controllers on them. The machines came from Gateway with a WD Caviar 31000
disk (1GB), a Mitsumi IDE-based CD-ROM (which FreeBSD can't use -- yet),
and SMC EtherPower PCI ethernet cards. The ATI Mach 64 is supported by
XFree86 3.1.1 and the SMC ethernet cards work extremely well with the 'de'
driver in FreeBSD. They're based on the DEC DC21040 ('tulip') chip.
Any PCI ethernet card based on the 21040 should work
These machines also have Adaptec 1542CF SCSI adapters in them with
1 GB Quantim Empire drives. I realize you want a PCI SCSI adatper, but
we don't have any systems configured like that here at the CTR. The
1542CFs and the IDE drives coexisted with no problems, and the default
board settings for the Adaptec worked fine.
The one system I used to test FreeBSD performed extremely well, except
for the CD-ROM, which FreeBSD didn't support (maybe someday). I used
the Feb 10th snapshot. XFree86 in 1280x1024x8bpp looked great, as did
1024x768x16bpp. Network performance was pretty solid. I set up NIS and
the automounter to integrate the system into the CTR network with little
trouble. I did find one problem with the automounter (no support for the
'resvport' option, but I fixed this easily with the sources and commited
the fix back into -current :) but on the whole things went together
pretty smootly.
I was actually pleasantly surprised by how well the Gateways worked,
especially considering some of the thing's I'd heard about them in
the past. If the CD-ROM drive has worked, I would have been tempted
to run off with the thing. :)
-Bill
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~T~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-Bill Paul (212) 854-6020 | System Manager
Work: wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu | Center for Telecommunications Research
Home: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu | Columbia University, New York City
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Møøse Illuminati: ignore it and be confused, or join it and be confusing!
~~~~~~~~ FreeBSD 2.1.0-Development #0: Thu Feb 16 11:54:10 EST 1995 ~~~~~~~~~