Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 12:02:39 -0600 From: Andy Isaacson <adi@hexapodia.org> To: Vincent Janelle <random@carnagecopia.com> Cc: Kenneth Culver <culverk@alpha.yumyumyum.org>, hlwatts@hiwaay.net, freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SGI Visual Workstation 330 Message-ID: <20020325120239.B9675@hexapodia.org> In-Reply-To: <20020325094440.3bec515f.random@carnagecopia.com>; from random@carnagecopia.com on Mon, Mar 25, 2002 at 09:44:40AM -0800 References: <000b01c1d41b$6bdaee40$944cb4d8@hiwaay.net> <20020325124253.E15966-100000@alpha.yumyumyum.org> <20020325094440.3bec515f.random@carnagecopia.com>
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On Mon, Mar 25, 2002 at 09:44:40AM -0800, Vincent Janelle wrote: > On Mon, 25 Mar 2002 12:43:18 -0500 (EST) > Kenneth Culver <culverk@alpha.yumyumyum.org> wrote: > > > > I have a SGI M25D motherboard taken from a discontinued Visual Workstation > > > 330. > > This motherboard is not technically an IBM compatible PC, its more > along the lines of an SGI workstation powered by intel processors. NT > has to use a custom HAL to support it under windows, and linux has > special support for it. > > Your best bet will probably be linux. The SGI VW series is confusing, fer sure. Vincent is thinking of the VW 540 and 320, which were truly amazing non-standard boxes that died their deserved death. (Their internal design was more like the O2 than like a standard PC.) You will have poor luck running anything but NT on the VW 540/320, even Linux doesn't have all the necessary hacks (and it doesn't have accelerated drivers for the graphics, which are the only thing that makes the machine special). The 330, on the other hand, is a much more standard PC-like box with AGP graphics and a fairly standard BIOS (I believe). These boxes didn't require any freaky special HAL, they run bog-standard NT and Linux. You will probably have decent luck getting this board running under FreeBSD. You say "motherboard", though -- watch out, it may have special power supply requirements. J. Random ATX power supply might not cut it. More info on SGI PC-class "workstations" at http://support.sgi.com/nt/ Good luck... -andy To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-smp" in the body of the message
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