Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 11:06:43 -0500 From: rdmurphy@acs.bu.edu To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Req: Purchase recommendations Message-ID: <199601101606.LAA84577@acs3.bu.edu>
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I hope this is the proper venue for this request; please correct me if it isn't. I am at last (after a long holdout) going to replace my home PC (an XT with 20MB hard drive and 1MB of RAM running PC-DOS 2.1 - don't laugh too much). I plan to run FreeBSD and do not have much need to run Windows or DOS applications. I don't need sound. I anticipate using the CD-ROM drive mostly to load new software; therefore I don't think I need anything particularly fast here. I'm looking for system, component, or vendor recommendations - both positive and negative. My budget is likely to be roughly $2400. Looking at various ads, it seems one can get a nice (?) EIDE Pentium system with 16MB RAM, 1 GB hard drive, and CD-ROM for this kind of money from places such as Dell and Micron. Questions: 1) Would these systems work with FreeBSD? 2) Assuming they would, what kind of arguments would anyone offer to push me away from EIDE and toward SCSI? 3) What other recommendations would you have? 4) Much less pressing: is there any possibility that I could take my old 20MB drive, install it in the new machine and mount it as a DOS drive to be used for whatever DOS stuff I do need to do? I have been trying to read as much of the hardware related information in various FAQs and at www.freebsd.org, but it's not yet entirely clear. For what it's worth, I think I am fairly knowledgable, but not at all expert. I have a couple years of experience with IBM's AIX, DEC's OSF/1 (now DIGITAL Unix), and a bunch of other non-Unix operating systems. I am not a hardware guy. Thanks much for any guidance you can offer. Russ Murphy
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