Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit:732 comp.os.linux:19152 comp.unix.bsd:8956 comp.windows.x:48330 Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd,comp.windows.x Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!network.ucsd.edu!usc!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!spool.mu.edu!yale.edu!news.yale.edu!yar.trincoll.edu!friedman From: friedman@starbase.trincoll.edu (Mark A. Friedman) Subject: Will Linux/386BSD/XFree86 run on my Gateway 2000 4DX2-66V? Message-ID: <1992Dec8.045541.28069@starbase.trincoll.edu> Sender: usenet@starbase.trincoll.edu (SACM Usenet News) Organization: Trinity College, Hartford, CT. Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1992 04:55:41 GMT Lines: 56 I am considering the purchase of a Gateway 2000 4DX2-66V system (Micronics motherboard, 8MB RAM to be expanded to 16MB, VESA VL-Bus, ATI Ultra Pro video card with Mac 32 68800 accelerator chip and 1 MB VRAM, CrystalScan 1572FS monitor, Western Digital Caviar 2340 local bus IDE hard disk) with the intent of running Linux or 386BSD and XFree86 at home. I've done my reading of the appropriate FAQ's and newsgroups over the last few months. Still, a few points confuse me about running the software on this hardware. (Ask me about SunOS and then I'll give you an answer. :^) ) Thus, I would appreciate any advice or words of warning before I make my purchase. I'll summarize the responses I receive to the net. 1) Can someone verify that I will indeed be able to run Linux/386BSD with the above hardware configuration? Or, am I making serious incompatibility errors with respect to the operating system? 2) Given that Gateway includes RIDE in its BIOS to interface with the 32-bit local bus (which will not be used by Unix), will 386BSD/Linux take advantage of the 32-bit VL-Bus when interacting with the hard drive and monitor? Will the VL-Bus offer noticable improvement? 3) From my reading of the XFree86 FAQ, the video card I intend to buy is not supported/recommended for use with XFree86. However, I've been confused by several postings indicating success with various ATI accelerator cards. Can someone verify that they indeed have had success running XFree86 with the ATI Ultra Pro video card with Mac 32 68800 accelerator chip? Can someone give a technical reason why it would be a difficult or next-to-impossible task to port XFree86 to this accelerator card? 4) What is the maximum resolution that I can expect to obtain with the ATI graphics card and the CrystalScan monitor? Will I be able to obtain 1280x1024 NI resolution? 5) Finally, in general, is the above system consistent with the future of Linux/386BSD and XFree86? That is, would you say for the configuration above that even though the current software does not take advantage of component X, component X is where the market is heading and the software will most certainly support that component in the near future. Thanks for taking the time to read through/respond to my posting. -- Mark Mark A. Friedman mark.friedman@mail.trincoll.edu Engineering and Computer Science (or friedman@starbase.trincoll.edu) Trinity College Phone: (203) 297-2519 Hartford, Connecticut 06106 Fax: (203) 297-2569