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From: root@kilowatt.linet.org (Kilowatt admin)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.linux,comp.unix.questions,comp.os.mach,comp.unix.solaris
Subject: Re: Unix close for 486 - commens requested
Message-ID: <CCCLq3.MBp@kilowatt.linet.org>
Date: 26 Aug 93 03:58:50 GMT
References: <CBAs9D.MH4@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <hastyCBvJrI.CMy@netcom.com> <CByvHr.AMJ@egr.uri.edu>
Distribution: inet
Organization: Kilowatt Computers of Deer Park, LI, NY
Lines: 48
>It's possible to have too much machine. I'm sitting on a
>Gateway 2000 4DX2-66V that was purchased to run LynxOS. Its got
>a fancy VESA local bus, fast hard drive, zippy video card, and
>runs Windows 3.1 like greased lightning. It can't even load Lynx
>though, because...well, nobody really knows. If I cripple the
>machine by diabling cache, turbo, IDE block mode, etc., it will
>sometimes boot Lynx, but usually not.
>
>It's interesting (to me anyway...) that in the newly formed LynxOS
>mailing list where this issue has been discussed a bit
>no one has reported problems with plain vanilla ISA bus machines.
>Further, the June '93 issue of Byte magazine reported on "fast 486 machines"
>and their ability to run SCO UNIX -- several of them had problems similar to
>mine, and in at least one case the solution was to cripple the machine
>as I've had to do. In my case, a generic '486 would have been better than
>my whiz-bang clone-of-the-month special, at least for running something
>other than MS-DOS/Windows.
I bought a plain 486-33 made in Taiwan using an ETEK chipset, with 256K
cache, back in April of '92. I ran UNIX on it (Consensys SVR4), and have
had NO problems WHATSOEVER that are hardware related. Adaptec 1542B,
Diamond SpeedSTAR Plus (or ATI Ultra 8514A), Maxtor Panther, Exabyte,
etc. etc.
I run the Adaptec (strapped) at 8MB/sec DMA transfer speed with no
problems (that is, if the driver doesn't set it to 5).
There is NO way to set things like wait states, or bus timings using the
BIOS. I can enable cache and such, but nothing as intricate as a 80386SX-33
I saw recently.
I wonder if there are bugs in the BIOS somewhere, and just never reported
because nothing was pushed to the limit like UNIX does. I don't mean that
UNIX uses the BIOS at all, I mean during booting, it may set some values
to far-off values.
I'm wondering what a DX-2 would do for my system - maybe break it? I'd
rather just add another 80486-33 (I have two of these vanilla motherboards)
and NFS mount everything.
John Black
black@cs.uri.edu
--
Curiosity killed the cat, but it never hurt ME - Arthur Krewat
Kilowatt Computers - Deer Park, NY (516) 253 2805
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