*BSD News Article 37951


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From: jaitken@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Jeff Aitken)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: Adaptec 2940W card on netbsd/freebsd?
Date: 17 Nov 1994 00:03:08 -0500
Organization: Virginia Tech Computer Science Dept, Blacksburg, VA
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Mark Frost (mfr@netcom.com) wrote:
: Gulp.  I just bought an Adaptec 2940W controller card with the PC I just
: ordered today (I got it 'cuz the onlyi other scsi controller the company
: had was an NCR card and I was quite sure I've never seen that one mentioned
: in conjunction with freebsd/netbsd).

Someone I spoke with a week or two ago indicated that there may be
support for the 2xxx line of cards.  The one I asked specifically
about was the 28xx (the VLB version, and just Fast SCSI-2, AFAIK).
Anyway, the person I received mail from (sorry, forgot the name and
don't have the message handy), said that he'd hashed out some sort of
fairly stable driver for it (I think he claimed that he'd not had any
cpu panics for a week, which probably means his machine died a
horrible death about 5 minutes after sending me the email, but... ;)

In any case, Jordan also indicated that there might be some form of
support for at least the 28xx card(s) in 2.0 (I suppose 2.0 BETA, or
maybe 2.1)  So you might be OK.  However, I'd second the
recommendation of trading for the NCR card - it's a *lot* cheaper (I
got mine for $79), and it is supported right now.  Plus, the guys who
wrote the driver have proven quite helpful to a certain bungling
ametuer... namely, me! ;)

In case you were wondering, the problem with Adaptec is that they are
generally unwilling to release programming information without some
type of NDA.  There are ways around this, but that only applies to
weirdos who like to write awful things like device drivers. :)

-- 
Jeff Aitken
jaitken@vt.edu