Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 23:04:03 -0800 From: La Temperanza <temperanza@softhome.net> To: Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Learning about other architectures Message-ID: <20030201230403.4e419daa.temperanza@softhome.net> In-Reply-To: <20030202011222.GA41196@rot13.obsecurity.org> References: <bulk.927.20030131203102@hub.freebsd.org> <20030131235502.08f068c8.temperanza@softhome.net> <20030202011222.GA41196@rot13.obsecurity.org>
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Well, without X support it doesn't sound like my type of system, but hopefully it would mature while I'm scraping together a grand or two. The workstations you suggested seem reasonable on eBay. I used to be a Mac user, so I'm not completely spoiled by dirt-cheap hardware :) Hmm... the UltraSPARC II's nbench numbers don't look too great compared to some other non-x86 CPUs, though. I'm quite tempted by the 750mHz Alpha 21264 being able to match a Pentium 4 1.7gHz (impaired by Red Hat, unfortunately) in integer performance and an Athlon XP 1700+ like mine in floating point. However, benchmarks are pretty bogus- expecially under *NIX- and I'm not sure if the "Compaq C" that Alpha was compiling with is available for BSD or available at all. On Sat, 1 Feb 2003 17:12:22 -0800 Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org> wrote: > On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 11:55:02PM -0800, La Temperanza wrote: > > > I'm pretty uninformed, so tell me about some of the alternatives to > > x86. Will I be able to match or improve performance/stability/etc as > > a home UNIX user? > > non-x86 hardware tends to be more expensive (supply and demand), but > you can pick up good cheap second-hand equipment on ebay. e.g. a sun > ultra 30 goes for about US$200, an ultra 60 for about $400 (watch a > few auctions to get a sense of the price fluctuations before buying). > If you want something as fast as the latest x86 CPUs expect to pay > MUCH more. > > > How is sound and graphics support (since I listen to music, > > watch DVDs in mplayer and like to play the occasional 3D game)? Are > > there any other caveats I should know about? > > FreeBSD/sparc64 does not yet have console support (e.g. no X), but for > any PCI-based machine you can just use ordinary PCI cards. Non-x86 > platforms have not been as widely tested, so you may run into caveats > (e.g. some network drivers do not yet work on sparc because they are > written non-portably). > > Kris > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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