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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!sgiblab!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uhog.mit.edu!news.mtholyoke.edu!nic.umass.edu!ymir.cs.umass.edu!gaia!doyle From: doyle@gaia.cs.umass.edu (Jim Doyle) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc Subject: NetBSD on cheap boxes Date: 13 Jan 1994 07:43:48 GMT Organization: CS Dept., Umass-Amherst Lines: 20 Message-ID: <2h2u3kINN6o3@ymir.cs.umass.edu> Reply-To: doyle@cs.umass.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: gaia.cs.umass.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL0] Hehe.. I bought a cheap 386sx box to run NetBSD solely as a router. I wanted to offload interrupt processing on my Sun at home, I had some extra PC parts (disk drive, Enet, SIMMs), so I spent $120.00 and got an SX. It sat there doing nothing but routing between my 14.4 PPP/SLIP link and my home ethernet segment (several other hosts attached). Well.. I got hooked. The thing now not only routes IP for me, it servers a local Kerberos realm for me, I've got a terminal tied off it so guests can check email and I moved my Xkernel stuff onto it so I can give my my diskless Sun 3/60 a boot (its an Xterm). Besides that, last week, I dropped in a 486/33 and threw in 8MB core. NetBSD is a bargain on cheapola hardware for dedicated applications. Particularly for Xterminals.. A friend of mine is pricing 486/33's to turn into Xterms for some engineers at the company he works for. It is a small company, they are tight on cash, and thus cant drop a SPARC-10 on everyones desk.. Given what a PC with a good S3 video card can do - it would be stupd to pay $2500.00 for an at most mediocre Xterm. - Jim D