On 2006/01/20 10:51, Joakim Roubert wrote: > Now I won't have to buy additional hardware for this one (but thanks > again for your ideas on that area), but I am about to choose H/W for a > server that _must_ run OpenBSD. Learning from "the past", I am now > checking the M/B spec. and compare them to > http://www.openbsd.org/i386.html and http://www.openbsd.org/amd64.html. > > I have found 4 available motherboards (socket 754, so the amd64 port > would be the best choice, I guess) at our provider, that might work; > the southbridges/all-in-one chips in those are, respectively: > > * nVidia nForce 410 MCP > * nVidia nForce3 250 > * VIA 8237R > * nVidia nForce4-4X > > In the OBSD hardware list, I find > > * NVIDIA nForce/nForce2/nForce2-400/nForce3/nForce3-250/nForce4 > * VIA Technologies VT82C586/A/B, VT82C596A/B, VT82C686A/B, VT8231, > VT8366, VT8233, VT8235, VT8237 > > Which one do you think would be the safest bet here?
I'll defer to anyone that has one..! 8237_R_ isn't listed, though 8237 is. I don't know whether the difference is enough to stop it from working...VIA usually get recommended when the topic of amd64 boards comes up (you'll find a few posts in the archives about this). nVidia aren't known as a good company for giving access to data sheets, but OTOH undeadly is on a Sun x2100 which uses nVidia chips, which seems to be working ok.. You can't use the internal nForce nic on OpenBSD (yet, at least). Generally: you have a better chance of full support if you stick to slightly older hardware (and at least, it increases the chances of someone having already posted if it doesn't work!). > It would be good to be able to run the SATA disks, but perhaps the > safest bet of them all is to get regular ATA ones? I don't have any SATA drives so I wouldn't know for sure, but it looks like most SATA controllers should be ok... I'm not sure about SATA II though.