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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!raven.eva.net!usenet From: "J.C. Archambeau" <jca@accessnv.com> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: NEED: The Best PC for FreeBS (Advice is asked) Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 14:23:07 -0800 (PST) Organization: Access Nevada Inc. Lines: 100 Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.90.961208140057.13797B-100000@bighorn.accessnv.com> References: <5882ep$amr@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <199612082144.QAA08144@node5.frontiernet.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: bighorn.accessnv.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In-Reply-To: <199612082144.QAA08144@node5.frontiernet.net> On Sun, 8 Dec 1996, Dan Foster wrote: >> Just about any of the major motherboard manufacturers will work. You >> might as well go with a Pentium box. If you want to go with SCSI on >> the motherboard, look into Quicktech/Iwill boards. They have an >> imbedded 2940U(W) motherboard. You'll end up saving about $200 by >> getting SCSI on the motherboard. The only reason I wouldn't go with >> this option is if you need a twin channel SCSI card. By having >> SCSI imbedded on the motherboard you do lose a PCI slot. > > But, look at it another way.... if you *don't* have the SCSI controller > embedded on the motherboard, you still lose a PCI slot (unless, of course > you get one of those el cheapo ISA cards) anyway when using a decent > SCSI controller in a PCI slot. Yes, but if the onboard SCSI adapter fails you're out a PCI slot, end of discussion. > I guess you're saying that at least without embedding it on the motherboard, > you at least have slightly more choices of how to use your PCI slots. Exactly and if the SCSI AIC fails you don't have the option of replacing the AIC as you do with a PCI card. > >: SCSI card - ? > > > >Buslogic BT-958 or Adaptec 2940UW. If you anticipate you may need > >more than 7 devices, go for the twin channel model, the 3940UW. I > >don't know if Buslogic has a twin channel card as of yet. > > Would generally recommend the Buslogic cards. Superior driver support. > Adaptecs are decent - with 70% of the PC SCSI market (as I once heard) - > are everywhere. But the 2940[UW] are somewhat more sensitive to flaky or > less-than-ideal cabling/termination. So if you do go the 2940[UW] route, > you *MUST* buy top-notch cabling (whether internal or external!) and > termination for the SCSI devices on the bus. This, of course, is generally > good practice with SCSI - but the 2940 is just somewhat more anal about > it. ;-) Adaptec started being anal retentive about cabling starting with the 154xC. > I don't have any experience with a 3940UW so I can't comment on it, > but the specs looks nothing less than awesome. How good is the driver > support, though? (curious) It appears to the system as a pair of 2940UW's. > >: Ethernet card - ? (3COM ? 3C509 ???) > >PCI. There's no reason to go ISA unless you want to set up a diskless > > That's my gut impression.. *BUT* there is *exactly* _ONE_ reason why > you wouldn't go the PCI route. That is - if you have a limited number > of PCI slots (say, 3) and you have a super-duper setup where you *need* > 4 or 5 cards... you'd relegate the least demanding cards to ISA, and use > the rest of the slots for PCI and the more demanding cards (in terms of > bus traffic). Even if you only have 3 or 4 PCI slots. You generally only need three PCI cards; video, EIDE or SCSI adapter and networking board. I don't know of anything else in PCI that you'd use under FreeBSD or has a driver for it. All Pentium motherboards generally have twin channel EIDE on the motherboard which is why you only get four PCI slots to begin with. You could get an EISA/PCI board and drop in the one supported EISA FDDI board if you were absolutely concerned about getting max throughput and were out of PCI slots. > 100BaseT ethernet, though, would be an excellent candidate for PCI, imho. You can only get 100B and FDDI in EISA and PCI. There might be a regenade VLB card or two (probably a Novell board, but it's not going to do you much good if there's no driver for the thing. :) In fact,the only concrete EISA network board driver I've seen in the FreeBSD FAQ is for the DEC EISA FDDI card. I haven't found anything for 10B or 100B ethernet. The Linux 3C59x supports all cards of that family in one driver. I did send e-mail to Doug White (questions@freebsd.org) to see if he knew anything about 10B or 100B EISA ethernet support since that's what I'm looking for, but I haven't gotten a response yet. Either he's passing it along to the NIC driver maintainer on the core team or has written me off as a rambling lunatic. :) I suspect there is little or none or I have to run the EISA NIC in 3C509 ISA mode thus dropping a 100B to 10B mode. If my senility hasn't set in, the 3C59x have a 3C509 10B mode. What I plan on doing is laying out the LAN with 10BT then upgrading to 100BTX when the price of 100B hubs goes down. The mail server, router and gateway for the time being will be a 486 EISA/VLB board. I probably will keep it as such until the system board dies. -- /* ** Internet: jca@accessnv.com | Don't blame me, I didn't vote for Clinton. ** jca@anv.net | Intel is the word for 'errata.' *************************************************************************** ** Note: Please direct all unsolicited commercial e-mail (Spam) to the ** special account postmaster@accessnv.com. Thank you. *************************************************************************** */