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<chapt><heading>PC Hardware compatibility<label id="hw"></heading>

  <p>Issues of hardware compatibility are among the most
    troublesome in the computer industry today and FreeBSD is by
    no means immune to trouble.  In this respect, FreeBSD's
    advantage of being able to run on inexpensive commidity PC
    hardware is also its liability when it comes to support for
    the amazing variety of components on the market.  While it
    would be impossible to provide a exhaustive listing of
    hardware that FreeBSD supports, this section serves as a
    catalog of the device drivers included with FreeBSD and the
    hardware each drivers supports.  Where possible and
    appropriate, notes about specific products are included.

    As FreeBSD is a volunteer project without a funded testing
    department, we depend on you, the user, for much of the
    information contained in this catalog.  If you have direct
    experience of hardware that does or does not work with
    FreeBSD, please let us know by sending email to
    <tt>doc@freebsd.org</tt>.  Questions about supported hardware
    should be directed to <tt>questions@freebsd.org</tt> (see
    <ref id="eresources:mail" name="Mailing Lists"> for more
    information).  When submitting information or asking a
    question, please remember to specify exactly what version of
    FreeBSD you are using and include as many details of your
    hardware as possible.

<sect><heading>Core/Processing<label id="hw:core"></heading>

<sect1><heading>Motherboards, busses, and chipsets</heading>
  <sect2><heading>* ISA</heading>
  <sect2><heading>* EISA</heading>
  <sect2><heading>* VLB</heading>
  <sect2><heading>PCI</heading>

	  <p><em>Contributed by &a.rgrimes;.<newline>25 April 1995.</em></p>

	  <p>Of the Intel PCI chip sets the following is a list
	    of brokenness from worst to best and a short
	    description of brokenness.</p>

	  <p><descrip>

	      <tag>Mercury:</tag> Cache coherency problems,
		especially if there are ISA bus masters behind
		the ISA to PCI bridge chip.  Hardware flaw, only
		known work around is to turn the cache
		off.

	      <tag>Saturn-I <em>(ie, 82424ZX at rev 0, 1 or 2)</em>:</tag>
		Write back cache coherency
		problems.  Hardware flaw, only known work around
		is to set the external cache to write-through
		mode.  Upgrade to Saturn-II.

	      <tag>Saturn-II <em>(ie, 82424ZX at rev 3 or 4)</em>:</tag>
                Works fine, but many MB
		manufactures leave out the external dirty bit
		SRAM needed for write back operation.  Work
		arounds are either run it in write through mode,
		or get the dirty bit SRAM installed.  (I have
		these for the ASUS PCI/I-486SP3G rev 1.6 and
		later boards).

	      <tag>Neptune:</tag> Can not run more than 2 bus
		master devices.  Admitted Intel design flaw.
		Workarounds include do not run more than 2 bus
		masters, special hardware design to replace the
		PCI bus arbiter (appears on Intel Altair board
		and several other Intel server group MB's).  And
		of course Intel's official answer, move to the
		Triton chip set, we ``fixed it there''.

	      <tag>Triton:</tag> No known cache coherency or bus
		master problems, chip set does not implement
		parity checking.  Workaround for parity issue.
		Wait for Triton-II.

	      <tag>Triton-II:</tag> Unknown, not yet shipping.

	    </descrip>
	  </p>

<sect1><heading>* CPUs/FPUs</heading>
<sect1><heading>* Memory</heading>
<sect1><heading>* BIOS</heading>

<sect><heading>Input/Output Devices<label id="hw:io"></heading>

<sect1><heading>* Video cards</heading>
<sect1><heading>* Sound cards</heading>
<sect1><heading>Serial ports and multiport cards</heading>

	<p>The <tt>sio</tt> driver provides support for NS8250-,
	  NS16450-, NS16550 and NS16550A-based EIA RS-232C (CCITT
	  V.24) communications interfaces.  Several multiport
	  cards are supported as well.  See the <tt>sio(4)</tt>
	  manual page for detailed technical documentation.

<sect2><heading>Digiboard PC/8</heading>

	  <p><em>Contributed by &a.awebster;.<newline>26 August
	      1995.</em>

	    Here is a config snippet from a machine with
	    digiboard PC/8 with 16550.  It has 8 modems connected
	    to these 8 lines, and they work just great.  Do not
	    forget to add <tt>options "COM_MULTIPORT"</tt> or it
	    will not work very well!

<tscreen><verb>
device          sio4    at isa? port 0x100 tty flags 0xb05
device          sio5    at isa? port 0x108 tty flags 0xb05
device          sio6    at isa? port 0x110 tty flags 0xb05
device          sio7    at isa? port 0x118 tty flags 0xb05
device          sio8    at isa? port 0x120 tty flags 0xb05
device          sio9    at isa? port 0x128 tty flags 0xb05
device          sio10   at isa? port 0x130 tty flags 0xb05
device          sio11   at isa? port 0x138 tty flags 0xb05 irq 9 vector siointr
</verb></tscreen>

	  The trick in setting this up is that the MSB of the
	  flags represent the last SIO port, in this case 11 so
	  flags are 0xb05.

<sect2><heading>Boca 16</heading>

	  <p><em>Contributed by &a.whiteside;.<newline>26 August
	      1995.</em>

	    The procedures to make a Boca 16 pord board with
	    FreeBSD are pretty straighforward, but you will need
	    a couple things to make it work:

	    <enum>
	      <item>You either need the kernel sources installed
		so you can recompile the necessary options or
		you will need someone else to compile it for you.
		The 2.0.5 default kernel does <bf>not</bf> come with
		multiport support enabled and you will need to add
		a device entry for each port anyways.
	      </item>
	      <item>Two, you will need to know the interrupt and IO
		setting for your Boca Board so you can set these
		options properly in the kernel.</item>
	    </enum>

	    One important note - the actual UART chips for the
	    Boca 16 are in the connector box, not on the internal
	    board itself. So if you have it unplugged, probes of
	    those ports will fail. I have never tested booting with
	    the box unplugged and plugging it back in, and I
	    suggest you do not either.

	    If you do not already have a custom kernel
	    configuration file set up, refer to <ref
	    id="kernelconfig" name="Kernel Configuration"> for
	    general procedurs.  The following are the specifics
	    for the Boca 16 board and assume you are using the
	    kernel name MYKERNEL and editing with vi.

	    <enum>
		<item>Add the line 
<tscreen><verb>
options "COM_MULTIPORT"
</verb></tscreen>
to the config file.
</item>

	      <item>Where the current <tt>device sio
		<em>xxx</em></tt> lines are, you will need to add
		16 more devices.  <em>Only the last device
		includes the interrupt vector for the
		board</em>. (See the <tt>sio(4)</tt> manual page
		for detail as to why.) 

		The following example is for a Boca Board with an
		interrupt of 3, and a base IO address 100h.  The
		IO address for Each port is +8 hexidecimal from
		the previous port, thus the 100h, 108h, 110h...
		addresses.

<tscreen><verb>
device sio1 at isa? port 0x100 tty flags 0x1005
device sio2 at isa? port 0x108 tty flags 0x1005
device sio3 at isa? port 0x110 tty flags 0x1005
device sio4 at isa? port 0x118 tty flags 0x1005
[...]
device sio15 at isa? port 0x170 tty flags 0x1005
device sio16 at isa? port 0x178 tty flags 0x1005 irq 3 vector siointr
</verb></tscreen>

		The flags entry <em>must</em> be changed from
		this example unless you are using the exact same
		sio assignments. Flags are set according to
		0x<em>MYY</em> where <em>M</em> indicates the
		minor number of the master port (the last port on
		a Boca 16) and <em>YY</em> indicates if FIFO is
		enabled or disabled(enabled), IRQ sharing is
		used(yes) and if there is an AST/4 compatible IRQ
		control register(no).

		In this example,
<tscreen><verb>
flags 0x1005
</verb></tscreen>

		indicates that the master port is sio16. If I
		added another board and assigned sio17 through
		sio28, the flags for all 16 ports on
		<em>that</em> board would be 0x1C05, where 1C
		indicates the minor number of the master port.
		Do not change the 05 setting.</item>

	      <item>Save and complete the kernel configuration,
		recompile, install and reboot.

		Presuming you have successfully installed the
		recompiled kernel and have it set to the correct
		address and IRQ, your boot message should
		indicate the successful probe of the Boca ports
		as follows: (obviously the sio numbers, IO and
		IRQ could be different)

<tscreen><verb>
sio1 at 0x100-0x107 flags 0x1005 on isa
sio1: type 16550A (multiport)
sio2 at 0x108-0x10f flags 0x1005 on isa
sio2: type 16550A (multiport)
sio3 at 0x110-0x117 flags 0x1005 on isa
sio3: type 16550A (multiport)
sio4 at 0x118-0x11f flags 0x1005 on isa
sio4: type 16550A (multiport)
sio5 at 0x120-0x127 flags 0x1005 on isa
sio5: type 16550A (multiport)
sio6 at 0x128-0x12f flags 0x1005 on isa
sio6: type 16550A (multiport)
sio7 at 0x130-0x137 flags 0x1005 on isa
sio7: type 16550A (multiport)
sio8 at 0x138-0x13f flags 0x1005 on isa
sio8: type 16550A (multiport)
sio9 at 0x140-0x147 flags 0x1005 on isa
sio9: type 16550A (multiport)
sio10 at 0x148-0x14f flags 0x1005 on isa
sio10: type 16550A (multiport)
sio11 at 0x150-0x157 flags 0x1005 on isa
sio11: type 16550A (multiport)
sio12 at 0x158-0x15f flags 0x1005 on isa
sio12: type 16550A (multiport)
sio13 at 0x160-0x167 flags 0x1005 on isa
sio13: type 16550A (multiport)
sio14 at 0x168-0x16f flags 0x1005 on isa
sio14: type 16550A (multiport)
sio15 at 0x170-0x177 flags 0x1005 on isa
sio15: type 16550A (multiport)
sio16 at 0x178-0x17f irq 3 flags 0x1005 on isa
sio16: type 16550A (multiport master)
</verb></tscreen>

		If the messages go by too fast to see, <tt>dmesg
		  &gt; more</tt> will show you the boot
		messages.</item>

	      <item>Next, apprepriate entries in <tt>/dev</tt> for the devices
		must be made using the <tt>/dev/MAKEDEV</tt>
		script.  After becoming root:
<tscreen>
# cd /dev<newline>
# ./MAKEDEV tty1<newline>
# ./MAKEDEV cua1<newline>
<em>(everything in between)</em><newline>
# ./MAKEDEV ttyg<newline>
# ./MAKEDEV cuag
</tscreen>

		If you do not want or need callout devices for some
		reason, you can dispense with making the <tt>cua*</tt>
		devices.</item>

	      <item>If you want a quick and sloppy way to make
		sure the devices are working, you can simply plug
		a modem into each port and (as root) <tt>echo at
		&gt; ttyd*</tt> for each device you have
		made. You <em>should</em> see the RX lights flash
		for each working port.</item>
	    </enum>


<sect1><heading>* Parallel ports</heading>
<sect1><heading>* Modems</heading>
<sect1><heading>* Network cards</heading>
<sect1><heading>* Keyboards</heading>
<sect1><heading>* Mice</heading>
<sect1><heading>* Other</heading>

<sect><heading>* Storage Devices<label id="hw:storage"></heading>

<sect1><heading>* Disk/tape controllers</heading>
  <sect2><heading>* SCSI</heading>
  <sect2><heading>* IDE</heading>
  <sect2><heading>* Floppy</heading>
<sect1><heading>* Hard drives</heading>
<sect1><heading>* Tape drives</heading>
<sect1><heading>* CD-ROM drives</heading>
<sect1><heading>* Other</heading>

<sect><heading>* Other<label id="hw:other"></heading>

<sect1><heading>* PCMCIA</heading>