*BSD News Article 4652


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!super!rminnich
From: rminnich@super.org (Ronald G Minnich)
Subject: Re: 386BSD & COMPAQ 486/33
Message-ID: <1992Sep8.023138.25145@super.org>
Sender: news@super.org (USENET News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: super
Organization: Supercomputing Research Center (Bowie, MD)
References: <1992Sep7.112452.5403@csd.uch.gr>
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 02:31:38 GMT
Lines: 30

In article <1992Sep7.112452.5403@csd.uch.gr> kanagn@ikaros.cc.uch.gr (Kostas Anagnostakis) writes:
>I tried to boot 386BSD on a COMPAQ 486/33 / 4 MB RAM but it didn't work.
>It didn't even get to the "386BSD etc" notice. Has anybody out there gone
>into the same problem ? 

as things currently stand compaq's won't boot it at all. any compaq. 
I only have talked to one person who has gotten it to go, one compaq
in a room full of compaqs. nobody knows why. I looked into it but don't 
have time to fool with it; I have no documentation on the machine 
and hate debugging in that mode when I know it is unnecessary. 
I am going to drop a Kbuck on bsdi and hope they have something that works. 

One thing you could try that has been recommended to me is to 
junk the COMPAQ ROMS and replace them with AMI roms. 

If the bsdi path doesn't work I am going to rip the compaq motherboards out
of the 3 deskpro/25 machines I have, 
replace them with cheap clone motherboards that
work, and take the compaq motherboards out for a little target practice. 
Should be fun. Should cost < $1500. 

Cheap advice: if you are looking for a machine to run 386bsd, don't get a 
compaq of any stripe.
ron

-- 
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satisfaction: the feeling you get when you        | rminnich@super.org
run newfs on a DOS disk so you can install 386BSD.| (301)-805-7451
Now if only I could do this to AIX on the RS/6k ...|