From: paul@suite.sw.oz.au (Paul Antoine) Subject: Re: Help! Linux on VESA local bus 486DX-33?? Date: 1 Apr 1993 23:15:27 GMT
In <1993Apr1.085627.3011@philips.oz.au> hamid@philips.oz.au (H.Homayouni) writes:
>I am about to buy a i486DX-33 system with VESA local bus, and was not
>sure if I could run Linux (+ X-Windows) on it. Linux info sheet tells
>me "Linux runs only on 386/486 machines with an ISA or EISA bus". The
>dealer tells me VESA is downward compatible with ISA and EISA and I
>have also succesfully loaded a1 and a2 disks and installed Linux
>on a similar system. But I am not sure if a fully loaded Linux
>-particularly with X- would also run ok.
I am currently running Linux+X on a VESA motherboard (using the OPTI
495SX chipset and a 486DLC). It runs fine, though I've yet to use the
local bus for anything - I'm was planing to use the local bus version
of the Actix GraphicsEngine with the S3 server (a friend has the ISA
version of this card running Linux, and boy is it FAST!)
I'm still battling with the motherboard manufacturer over a problem
with the Ultrastore 34F SCSI board. The 34F does conform to VESA, but
uses the full bus-mastering modes. There are rumours that some
motherboards claiming to be VESA compatible are not capable of
supporting the bus-mastering.
Paul
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Paul Antoine, Softway Pty Ltd Net: paul@suite.sw.oz.au
PO Box 305, Strawberry Hills, NSW 2012, Australia Tel: +61 2 698 2322
79 Myrtle St, Chippendale, NSW 2008, Australia Fax: +61 2 699 9174
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