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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.cis.okstate.edu!newsfeed.ksu.ksu.edu!news.mid.net!news.sdsmt.edu!nntp.uac.net!usenet.logical.net!news.sprintlink.net!news-pen-4.sprintlink.net!news2.noc.netcom.net!noc.netcom.net!netcom.com!jlemon From: jlemon@netcom.com (Jonathan Lemon) Subject: Re: FreeBSD system specification Message-ID: <jlemonDu1850.GH5@netcom.com> Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) References: <4r8e4e$m2@nntp5.u.washington.edu> Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 18:46:12 GMT Lines: 210 Sender: jlemon@netcom22.netcom.com In article <4r8e4e$m2@nntp5.u.washington.edu>, William R. Somsky <somsky@dirac.phys.washington.edu> wrote: > * [$200] ASUS P55T2P4 [430HX] 512K PB Cache w/ PS2 mouse connector With only 32M of ram, you might want to just get the 256K cache, and upgrade it later if you add more memory. (I have an asus XP55T2P4/p133, 32M, 256k) >Case and Power Supply: > > * [$200] Shin-G GT-300(?) 300W tower, toolless, 4+3 5" bays, 2nd fan > > One case I've seen that looked pretty good was, I believe, a Shin-G > GT-300. (Can anyone check me on this part number? I'm not completely > certain if this is right. I tried to find more info on Shin-G on the > net/web, but came up blank.) It was quite a nice case w/ toolless > entry, a 300W power supply, butterfly side-opening panels, 4 exposed > and 3 internal 5.25" bays w/ slide-in rails, and a second fan. > Anybody have/seen one of these? How good is the power supply in > this? Any other comments, anyone? Hey, I have one of these, in black. It's about 4 years old, never failed me, and I have it completely stuffed with a 1.2G, 540M, 2 100M, a cdrom, 3.5" and 5.25" drives. The slide in rails make it easy to do maintenance on, and I can get inside the case in less than 5 seconds. Wonderful case. (The 100M drives were surplus drives pulled out of a Sun machine - so what? I had the scsi id's free, and the bay space, so I might as well put them in) > ? [$80] Teac Dual 3.5"/5.25" If you _really_ need a 5.25" drive, then get the dual. You'll need the bay space in a few years. Otherwise you can get a 5.25" drive, and toss it in a year or so to free up space for more hard drives. Teac is good, that's what I have also. >SCSI Controller: > > [$200] Adaptec 2940 PCI > ? [$260] Adaptec 2940 PCI Kit > [$310] Adaptec 2940UW PCI Kit > > This is going to be an all SCSI system -- none of this messing about > with IDE/EIDE -- so I need a good SCSI controller. The Adaptec 2940 > is a known good performer and well supported by FreeBSD. > > What I'm uncertain about is just what's included in the "kit" form > vs. the "bare" card. I doubt that any of extra software would be > useful for running FreeBSD (or is it?), but remember that I'm also > planning on using the system for DOS/Win/Win95 gaming, and although > Win95 supposedly has all the necessary drivers builtin, I believe > separate drivers are needed for running the CDROM, etc in DOS mode. > Do all the proper drivers come with the "bare" card, or is it a > _really_ "bare" card w/ no software whatsoever. And even if the > necessary drivers are all there with the "bare" card, is there > anything in the "kit" package that would be worth having? Can anyone > who's dealt with this give me some info here? The "bare" card is just the card. No software other than the built in Adaptec BIOS (press Ctrl-A to low-level format the drive, etc). This is all you'll need for FreeBSD. The "kit" includes Adaptec's ASPI software, which is basically the driver that allows DOS to access the CDROM, tape, and any scsi drives over the first two. You'll need this if you want to run DOS. I don't know whether it is still required for Win95, though. > Now from the general prices I've seen there doesn't seem to be too > much of a price increase from the 2940 kit to the 2940UW kit, but > since this system isn't going to be performing any heavy-duty file > service, there seems to be little need for the SCSI ultra and/or wide > options, and I'm a little uncertain about whether having a wide bus > would present any complications in connecting to narrow/normal > components. (I know it can be done, but then you get into narrow vs > wide connector issues, etc.) Can anyone confirm/deny my feeling that > there really wouldn't be any noticeable benefit in going to the 2940UW > for this system? You can mix wide/narrow devices on the scsi bus with a wide controller - you just put all the narrow devices after the wide ones. Unless you really need very high speed I/O (graphics, fileserver) you might want to just stick with the narrow devices. On the other hand, if the price delta is really small, you could just get a wide controller so you can add wide devices in a few years, as prices on hard drives appear to be dropping. > >Hard Disk: > > * [$500] 2GB 3.5" 5400 rpm Fast SCSI-2 Seagate Hawk ST32430N > [$700] 2GB 3.5" 7200 rpm Fast SCSI-2 Seagate Barracuda ST32550N > > At this point, it leaves us with the choice of the 5400 rpm Hawk > or the 7200 rpm Barracuda drive. (Actually, from what I hear, there > are a couple variants of the Hawk drive, but they should all be > interchangeable for our purposes here, shouldn't they?) So, is the > extra speed of the Barracuda worth the extra $200 or so? Would > the speed difference be noticeable in the system I'm building here? > I'm tempted to get slickest, hottest drive here, but would I just > be paying for the bragging rights to say I have a 7200 rpm drive? The 'cuda is noticeably faster in some situations, but for a personal system, probably overkill. I have a 1.2G Hawk I got for $300 last year, you might want to check your pricing on the 2G Hawk. Use the money you save to buy another drive; you can never have too much disk space, and 2 5400 spindles are faster than 1 7200 spindle. >CDROM Drive: > > ? [$280] NEC Multispin 6Xi SCSI > [$260] Toshiba 3701B 6.7x SCSI > [$340] Toshiba ????? 8x SCSI ??? -- is there such a thing? I like Toshiba, but then I still only have a 2X drive. :-) Probably the biggest issue is the caddy/tray - if you do a lot of CDROM swapping then the caddy is a good choice. If you juse use the CD's every now and then, having to load them into a caddy, use them, and then put it back in the jewel case for storage when you're done gets to be a bit of the pain. >Video Card: > > * [$300] #9 Motion 771 2MB VRAM PCI w/ 220 MHz IBM RAMDAC > [$450] #9 Motion 771 4MB VRAM PCI w/ 220 MHz IBM RAMDAC I have another machine with a 771, it's nice. 1152x864 is about the maximum visibility for a 17" monitor (I have a NEC 5FG), 1280x1024 tends to be a little too small for readability (IMHO). 2M is adequate for this resolution; 4M is needed only if you want a larger resolution, in which case you really need a 19" or larger monitor. >Monitor: > > [$800] Viewsonic 17PS .25mm > ? [$1000] Sony Multiscan 17SE-2T .25mm > [$1000] Nanao Flexscan F2-17EX .26mm > [$1025] Nanao Flexscan T2-17 .26mm [not T2-17TS] Don't even think about a 15" monitor. 17" is minimum. You might want to look at NEC - their colors and sharpness are wonderful, but they are kinda pricey. > Aperture grill or shadow mask? I've heard the former is brighter, > with better color saturation for images, but the latter is a bit > sharper for line graphics and fine text. Gameplaying will rely > mostly on images, while FreeBSDing will rely mostly on text. Since I > will be spending hours looking at text in FreeBSD, and don't want to > limit myself to a single 80 character wide xterm, I think I want to > have good performance w/ fine text. However, that "wet paint" look > of the trinitrons is very tempting. Some of the trinitrons have 2 faint, visible vertical stripes running down the screen, (at about the 1/3 and 2/3 positions) they are shadows from the wire that hold up the shadow mask. These may or may not bother you. (they bothered me enough that I didn't look at any of the trinitrons) Really, you have to go and look. For my taste, the Sonys had the shadow problem mentioned above, the Viewsonic looked washed out compared to the NEC and another brand (I forget) had convergence problems. >Keyboard: > > [$25] Generic cheap keyboard > * [$50] Generic good-quality 101/104 "bar-return" keyboard > [$??] IBM Professional keyboard > [$90] Northgate Omnikey 101P keyboard I have a Northgate. It's the best keyboard that I've ever used, and kinda feels like the old IBM Selectric typewriters, but not as deep of a drop. They _used_ to make keyboards with the ESC in the correct place (up with the numbers) but the newer ones just have ESC in the function key area. *sigh*. I've gotten used to typing ^[ anyway, as I have to deal with some other icky PC keyboards. >Modem: > > * [$0] Best Data "Smart One" 14.4k, external [* I already have this *] > [$200] US Robotics Sportster Vi, external > [$350] US Robotics Courier V.34, external > ? [$225] Motorola Power, external > [$325] Motorola Premier, external > > Contrary to what I just said above about detesting extra boxes and > cords on a system, a modem is the one thing that I _want_ to be > external: I want to be able to see the status lights to tell what's > going on, and be able to reset/power-cycle it manually if it becomes > hung, without resetting my entire system. Smart. You can't power-cycle an internal modem. Don't even look at the sportsters, they are crap. Get a Courier or Power. I have a bunch of Powers that have been running 24x7 for about a year, and I can count the total number of lockups/line-drops on one hand. >UPS: Unless you are going to have this up 24 hours, don't bother with an UPS. Just get a surge suppressor. (I live out in lightning country, and haven't fried any equipment) FreeBSD can easily handle just pulling the plug on the system, I'm assuming you aren't going to keep critical data under Win95? >If there's an interest, perhaps I'll update this based on the answers I >get from all of you out there and post it as a web page on our server. That would be interesting. :-) -- Jonathan