Re: AS255: UW SCSI, sound, video, kernel

[Jay.Estabrook@digital.com]

>>> William Brioschi said:
> 
> Now, to the subject: I'd like to buy an UW or U2W controller and
> a reasonable (price-wise) disk.
> Unless I get strong evidence against it, I'm going for a Tekram
> 390U2B, an ultra 2 wide LVD controller based on Symbios 53C895,
> which I suppose should work perfectly on my Alpha (a Diamond
> Fireport 20 with a 53C875 works very well). By the way, it costs
> less than many ultra wide controllers.
> I'd like to receive some advice on this. In particular, the
> Tekram 395W (ultra wide) is interesting, but I think it is
> unsupported even for i386.

Be very careful; it's possible that the console (SRM or ARC) will not work
with such a controller (U2W), though it's a much better possiblity with the
NCR than with an Adaptec. See if you can borrow one to find out, first. If
not, it's possible that the latest firmware for AS255 might help.

> Second: on board sound chip. What is it? Is it supported?

MSS compatible; 530, IRQ 9, DRQ 3, IIRC...

> Fourth: video card. I have a TGA2 (Powerstorm 3d30), in VGA
> emulation mode. I can't have it turn on the monitor in native
> mode. Not even thinking of frame buffer or X. Is there support
> for it any way? Or, is it any way compatible to TGA? Or, are
> specifications available? maybe I could write fb support.

TGA-2 is not supported under XFree86, or the commercial LINUX Xservers,
AFAIK.  It is not compatible with the orignal TGA.  It has a VGA (CIRRUS)
for console text-mode, which can be run with the Mono server, but the full
CIRRUS support in XFree86 has not been ported, and there's only 256K of
memory, IIRC.

Best cards for current Xservers would be a Millennium, ATI, or Permedia-2.
Also, a 3Dfx Banshee/V3 server is in beta; I've a 16Mb Banshee that I picked
up for USD $80 (!) that runs quite well... :-)

Good luck.

--Jay++

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  American Non Sequitur Society: we don't make sense, but we do like pizza...

Jay A Estabrook                            Alpha Motherboards - LINUX Project
Compaq Computer Corporation - SHR3-2/R28   (508) 841-3241 or (DTN) 237-3241
334 South Street, Shrewsbury, MA 01545     Jay.Estabrook@digital.com
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