Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 14:10:04 -0800 (PST) From: lncy@swbell.net To: freebsd-bugs Subject: Re: i386/4902: Please add support for Promise Ultra33 UDMA Bus Master PCI/IDE Controller Message-ID: <199802232210.OAA24298@hub.freebsd.org>
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The following reply was made to PR i386/4902; it has been noted by GNATS. From: lncy@swbell.net To: freebsd-gnats-submit@freebsd.org, dls@laser.caltech.edu Cc: Subject: Re: i386/4902: Please add support for Promise Ultra33 UDMA Bus Master PCI/IDE Controller Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 17:04:10 -0800 I too have a promise controller for ultra 33 dma/33 i feel this is a critical issue because soon there will be no eide hd's around, brand new that is. and sometimes you can 1) not afford scsi 2) will want a laptop in the future with a bootable hd "have you seen one with scsi onboard and a scsi drive, i don't even think they make 2.5" scsi drives and no laptop i know of has scsi onboard( mac excepted )but there is no good bsd ports for macintosh right now( an issue in itself ) and thanks to win 95 public most future laptops will sport ultra ide hd"s. so if you want new hardware your choice is buy a full scsi home solution and give up on travel, buy a very $10,000 and up unix laptop which will come bundled with some unix incarnation and in that case you won't need free bsd and if you can afford this you won't be interested in it either.fact is you have one choice do all your computing at home on an expensive scsi system. also lastly i feel that we can win millions of converts from the linux camp if we can get support for ultra dma hard drives first it will speak volumes about the kind of support the free bsd community can deliver. i do understand that this may be more than a driver only issue (i.e a truly new kernel may have to be developed ) but it is i feel the future of the growth of free bsd. we must continue to allow the pnp win 95/nt/98 crowd the ability to load and go . the main attraction of free bsd for me was not some great solution but the ability to do and try something new which didn't cost me $500.00 to do. this is what delivers new blood and sometimes new talent to anything.if this problem is not corrected free bsd might as well become _____unix another costly unix variant and you might as well start charging for it and get at least $1000.00 a chair for it too. after all if you start making it hardware compliant you might want to start selling boxes too with a proprietary interface hey the next sparc is just around the corner. you might be able to charge extra for the ram too. i believe you see my point we are drifting from open computing to closed systems in what seems like a very short time.not just because of scsi only compatability but people frequently refer to most hardware too avoid as that junk without jumpers well go into most stores today and all you can buy is that jumperless junk. help............... To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-bugs" in the body of the message
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