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From: friedman@starbase.trincoll.edu (Mark A. Friedman)
Subject: Will Linux/386BSD/XFree86 run on my Gateway 2000 4DX2-66V?
Message-ID: <1992Dec8.045541.28069@starbase.trincoll.edu>
Sender: usenet@starbase.trincoll.edu (SACM Usenet News)
Organization: Trinity College, Hartford, CT.
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1992 04:55:41 GMT
Lines: 56


I am considering the purchase of a Gateway 2000 4DX2-66V system

(Micronics motherboard, 8MB RAM to be expanded to 16MB, VESA VL-Bus,
ATI Ultra Pro video card with Mac 32 68800 accelerator chip and 1 MB
VRAM, CrystalScan 1572FS monitor, Western Digital Caviar 2340 local
bus IDE hard disk)

with the intent of running Linux or 386BSD and XFree86 at home.

I've done my reading of the appropriate FAQ's and newsgroups over the
last few months.  Still, a few points confuse me about running the
software on this hardware.  (Ask me about SunOS and then I'll give 
you an answer. :^) )

Thus, I would appreciate any advice or words of warning before I make
my purchase.  I'll summarize the responses I receive to the net.

1) Can someone verify that I will indeed be able to run Linux/386BSD
   with the above hardware configuration?  Or, am I making serious
   incompatibility errors with respect to the operating system?

2) Given that Gateway includes RIDE in its BIOS to interface with the
   32-bit local bus (which will not be used by Unix), will 386BSD/Linux
   take advantage of the 32-bit VL-Bus when interacting with the hard
   drive and monitor?  Will the VL-Bus offer noticable improvement?

3) From my reading of the XFree86 FAQ, the video card I intend to buy
   is not supported/recommended for use with XFree86.  However, I've been
   confused by several postings indicating success with various ATI
   accelerator cards.  Can someone verify that they indeed have had
   success running XFree86 with the ATI Ultra Pro video card with Mac 32
   68800 accelerator chip?  Can someone give a technical reason why it
   would be a difficult or next-to-impossible task to port XFree86 to
   this accelerator card?

4) What is the maximum resolution that I can expect to obtain with the
   ATI graphics card and the CrystalScan monitor?  Will I be able to
   obtain 1280x1024 NI resolution?

5) Finally, in general, is the above system consistent with the future
   of Linux/386BSD and XFree86?  That is, would you say for the
   configuration above that even though the current software does not
   take advantage of component X, component X is where the market is
   heading and the software will most certainly support that component in
   the near future.

Thanks for taking the time to read through/respond to my posting.

-- Mark

Mark A. Friedman		 	 mark.friedman@mail.trincoll.edu
Engineering and Computer Science	 (or friedman@starbase.trincoll.edu)
Trinity College				 Phone: (203) 297-2519
Hartford, Connecticut   06106		 Fax: (203) 297-2569