*BSD News Article 19103


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From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: getting started
Message-ID: <CB55GJ.Luq@twwells.com>
Date: 2 Aug 93 16:50:41 GMT
Organization: None, Mt. Laurel, NJ
Lines: 31

I have a Zenith 386/16, 12M, WD1007 disk controller (ESDI), a 135M
disk, a 5 1/4 floppy, a Tecmar VGA card, and an 8 port serial
(dumb, 16550As) card. Once 386bsd is up, I'll be adding a second
135M disk. Somewhere along the line, I'll be adding a 3 1/2
floppy.

What I don't have is some sort of tape backup and the right
386bsd to start with. Money is, alas, a consideration, so I need
to keep the cost down. If the QIC-02 support were there, I'd
probably go with one of those drives but beyond that, I'm not
sure what a good choice would be.

I do have a tape drive that's hidden inside a Sun shoebox; here
are some numbers I scrounged off the drive and tapes. "21609 002
rev A Archive 5954S-1 DC600A". If it is possible to use that drive
with 386bsd, what sort of controller do I need? I guess the drive
is SCSI, since that's how the shoebox connects to the Sun and
there is no interface board, but are there any gotchas?

If that drive won't work, what would be a good drive to go for?
And what controller? It'll have to work with the ESDI controller
in there.

As for 386bsd itself, what I have is 0.1 without any patches;
this boots OK and lets me play, so I don't think I'll have any
compatibility problems. The question is which of the 386bsd's
floating around is my best choice now that I have some spare time
(and some $$$ for the tape drive I'd have to have)? (And which is
a good archive site to get it from?) While I like to kernel hack,
stability is top of the list, since my hacking system will be my
primary system.