From: nbladt@autelca.ascom.ch (Norbert Bladt)
Subject: Re: The ultimate 386BSD machine? (FAQ fodder)
Keywords: 386BSD
Organization: Ascom Autelca AG, Guemligen, Switzerland
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 09:08:50 GMT

earle@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Greg Earle - Gainfully Unemployed) writes:

>I recently downloaded the 386BSD FAQ from agate.Berkeley.EDU and was
>somewhat surprised to see that my questions were not addressed at all.
This is an unofficial version and, you are right in that hardware related
issues are not addressed in it. Perhaps it will be in the future.

>I would like to know if anyone has compiled a list of supported/recommended
>PC clone hardware for running 386BSD 0.1++ (will we ever see a 0.2? (-: ) on.
I don't think there is a such a list. However, people posted, just after
0.1 was released their success of installation (or, of course, problems)
on different platforms.
Unfortunately, you didn't watch this group at that time and, of course,
nobody did save the articles (except the archive "minnie).
An announcement (reminder) of this service was posted a few days ago
on comp.unix.bsd.

>When I started to think about possibly purchasing a system to do this on, I
>quickly found myself suffering from Lack Of Information Syndrome (LOIS).  Let
>me give some examples:

>- I have seen some benchmarks whereby a 486DX2/66 outperforms a 486DX/50.  But
>  I saw a posting by Barry Shein that indicated that due to the bus speed on
>  the former being only 33 MHz, this would not be a good idea as doing things
>  like bitblts in X would be faster on a "native" 50 MHz system.  This seemed
>  perfectly reasonable, so it seems that a 486DX/50 is the best idea.  Right?
I don't know. I didn't buy a 486/50. Because of the heat it generates
you need two fans (noisy) and another one just for the CPU (on top of 
the cooling device on top of the CPU), etc.
I stayed with the 486/33. I spend the money for a bigger harddisk, more RAM and
a fast SCSI controller, instead.

>- I saw a posting from Lynne Jolitz that I believe mentioned that a 32-bit
>  disk controller was the best idea.  I have assumed from subsequent postings
>  that the Adaptec 1542B is the "controller of choice", no?  OK, but that's
>  an EISA board, correct?  But now I'm confused, I thought that 386BSD didn't
>  support "EISA machines".  What's the deal?
Indeed, the 1542B is a good controller (IMHO) and I had no problems installing
the stock 386BSD-0.1, i.e. using the dist.fs floppy, on the ISA system
with 1542B. The same was true with other (commercial) *nix OS's.
In addition, it is supported by OS/2 2.0 and Solaris (SUN-OS) 2.0 for Intel
processors. That was one of the pro's for me to order this board for our current
Interactive UNIX system and in buying the 1742A for home use.

The 1542B is an ISA board and not EISA. The 174x adapters are EISA.
I have an 1742A in my EISA system.
And I have 386BSD-0.1 patchkit-beta1 running at home !
EISA is, in general not supported, but, I am using a S3 EISA-VGA board
and an ISA com-port board (serial / parallel). Both are detected just fine
during boot by 386BSD-0.1 (stock and patchkit-beta1). ISA should be compatible
with EISA, that's the point vs. IBM microchannel.
It is more important (at least for me) that EISA SCSI controllers are
supported than simple boards with serial ports on it.

>  As an adjunct to this, I expect Julian to jump in with "But an Adaptec 1742A
>  is supported with my new SCSI subsystem ... ".  Fine, but can one get the
>  system up first (with it installed) to get to the point where one can
>  recompile the kernel with the new SCSI subsystem?
There should be a boot floppy with his SCSI driver subsystem included
available. Please ask him (julian@tfs.COM)
I did all the compilation of new kernels, etc on the ISA system with 1542B
first and then took the boot-floppy home and tried it. I think, I was lucky
to have a 100 MB harddisk (borrowed) and an ISA system available to do it.

>- Of course, all of this begs the more fundamental questions, like
>  "SCSI or IDE?" (to which I assume "SCSI" is the more correct answer ... ) and
>  what about these new VESA VL-bus systems that I'm seeing described in the
>  new Byte, and that I'm seeing advertised in the new Computer Shopper?  Any
>  support for these?  (I assume not ... )
I did use SCSI, because, with a 520 MB harddisk I don't want to do backup
on floppies and I want to do the backup now. This was no problem with the
new SCSI system and the Archive 150MB streamer, although I didn't do
a multi-volume backup, yet.
Regarding local-bus: This is JUST a hardware feature and the software,
normally, doesn't see whether the controller is connected on the local bus
or on the ISA bus. Just the speed is the difference.

>- Video card support.  Is that fancy SVGA card with 1Mbyte of video RAM that
>  dealer XYZ wants to package into my neophyte's system compatible with XFree86
>  or not?  For example, I'd heard the bottom line was "no Diamond Stealth
>  support until marriage!" (-:  but then it seems like someone posted a little
>  program to do clock twiddling so it would work.  What's the Real Scoop on the
>  video cards to buy?  Can I just download vanilla X11 R5, apply the MIT
>  patches, and then grab some XFree86 related patches from agate and apply
>  those and turn gcc 2.2.2 loose on it, and expect that things will work?  etc.
The best bet is to buy an ET-4000 board now. Or use the monochrome standard
VGA server on your 8514/A or S3 (coprocessor) board and wait for a "driver"
for X.
Yes, you can get mit X11R5 (with fixes up to 17) and apply some other
patches (for XFree86) and compile it. (At least that was mentioned
in the announcement for XFree86 - I will try it this weekend). I am doing
this because it is much easier for me to get X11R5 over nfs to streamer than
getting the binaries, man-pages, include files, etc. from a ftp-site (expen-
sive for me).
In addition, the patches to the sources are much smaller (ca. 400kB) than
the binaries alone (11 MB !). If you will have enough room for X on your disk,
you could do this, too.

>- External cache.  I had assumed "the more the merrier", like 128K.  But I've
>  seen people posting problems with external caches; either 64K or 128K was
>  causing problems.  No problems if they turn the cache off, which I assume is
>  Not A Good Thing.  What's the scoop on this?
I have never heard about it. I have 256kB Cache on my system, though.
Perhaps, I am just lucky, again.

>- Serial ports; more trivial, but can I assume nowadays that I don't have to
>  ask for NS16550AFN chips, and will get them by default?  (I will want to run
>  PPP at 38400 baud over them ... )
Don't expect to get 16550 per default, at all. Unless this is a very
competent dealer and he will sell you a board with these chips when you
tell him you want to run *n*x on it. I am thinking, for now, the
"cheapest is the best to sell" idea for dealers is THE IDEA of the year
and with DOS you have the CPU under full control in your comm-program.
So it might be possible to use a 8250 for 9600 or even 19200 without too
many hassle. And they are cheaper, that's why they are sold everywhere.

>Given appropriate answers to the above, does anyone have any particular
>recommendations on system packages?  Can one get a system without having
>MS-DROSS 5.0 and Windoze 3.1 thrown in?  Is it better - assuming that if one
>only wants to run 386BSD and not DOS - to buy "pick-a-part" fashion so that
>one doesn't have to pay for DOS and Windows, or is it better to buy a complete
>system from one of these gazillion system houses, and consider DOS and Windows
>as (unwanted) freebies?  If the latter, does anyone have any recommendations
>on particular system houses/systems based on price and/or performance?
>Etc., etc.
One problem with these packages is, that you always get at leawst one or two
things you don't want for 386BSD. Either it's a 14" monitor for X (useless)
or a non-supported 8MB-cache EISA SCSI controller or ...
That's why I send a spec. for my system to several dealers and asked for an
offer. Some did just say: We can't deliver systems configured to your spec.

>It seems to me that this type of stuff should be FAQ fodder, but the 386BSD
>FAQ struck me as "Well, you've already got the hardware and either have it
>up or you're having troubles booting the TinyBSD floppy ... ", instead of
>also addressing more preliminary requirements and questions such as the ones
>I've posed above.
There is "*n*x hardware buyers guide" in comp.unix.sysv386. I did choose
my system after some experience with Interactive UNIX on PC's.

>Any answers to the above would be greatly appreciated.  As someone whose
>background has basically been nearly 9 years of Sun experience for the past 10
>years, buying one's first Computer Shopper and buying other PC-oriented rags
>to get info on things like CPUs and busses and the like quickly proves rather
>daunting, and it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff when you're
>trying to determine that ideal 386BSD configuration.
It's not even easy for MS-DOS. The confusion started with the first
chip-sets on the market and their possibilities to implement EMS on 286
systems, the shadow RAM function, etc.
Every dealer can sell useless stuff to the normal "Joe User" without any
problems. First, Joe User is not a candidate to buy more PC's than, say,
one every few years. So, once sold and paid, who cares about Joe User ?
Second, show Joe User a few nice gif's on the colour screen and he will
buy this wonderful system :-)

>(Please post followups to comp.unix.bsd, which I can actually get to reading
> once in a blue moon (-: )
Done it.

Hope it helps a little. At least it should clarify some things and confuse
you with others :-)

Norbert.
-- 
Norbert Bladt, Ascom Autelca AG, Worbstr. 201, CH-3073 Guemligen, Switzerland
Phone: +41 31 999 65 52			FAX: +41 31 999 65 44
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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd