[9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[jj]

All,

I am planing on getting a new PC and was really interested in
intalling plan9 as the OS.

I would prefer to avoid building my own PC from compatible parts. So I
was wondering if people here had successsfully installed plan 9 on a
'off-the-shelves' PC (brand - model) and if they had any advice.
Sorry for the 'not-even-a-newbie-yet' question and thank you for the
help.

jj

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[andrey mirtchovski]

Everything that would run VMWare at a reasonable speed will do. Mind the
three-button mouse requirement...

Apart from that, I have an IBM NetVista here that runs p9 with less hick-up
than, say, FreeBSD :)

Make sure you get a geforce[23]/vanta video card -- still good for most
games, and it works great under Plan9. You mileage with a geforce4 may vary.

andrey

ps: the new IBM R30+ laptops all come with Radeon7500 graphics. If mine
arrives soon I may report on experiences with that :)

On Tue, 18 Feb 2003, jj wrote:

> All,
>
> I am planing on getting a new PC and was really interested in
> intalling plan9 as the OS.
>
> I would prefer to avoid building my own PC from compatible parts. So I
> was wondering if people here had successsfully installed plan 9 on a
> 'off-the-shelves' PC (brand - model) and if they had any advice.
> Sorry for the 'not-even-a-newbie-yet' question and thank you for the
> help.
>
> jj
>

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Russ Cox]

> I would prefer to avoid building my own PC from compatible parts. So I
> was wondering if people here had successsfully installed plan 9 on a
> 'off-the-shelves' PC (brand - model) and if they had any advice.
> Sorry for the 'not-even-a-newbie-yet' question and thank you for the
> help.

The hard part is always video, and after that disks.

Something with IDE disks and an Nvidia video card
is very likely to work.  SCSI controllers not so much.
Other current video cards, not hardly at all.

One rising concern is USB -- we support USB devices
but not USB keyboards, and I don't remember the
current state of USB mice.  Make sure the computer
comes with a standard PS/2 keyboard if not mouse.

(Nvidia is fairly committed to keeping their current
cards backwards compatible with their old cards,
and thus with our driver.  This makes them my new
favorite video card company, despite the fact that
the driver is effectively a binary they distribute.)

Russ

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Ronald G. Minnich]

has anybody tried the $200 Walmart PCs :-)

ron

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[George Gensure]

USB mice have worked fabulously for me.

% usb/usbd
% usb/usbmouse

turned my little intellimouse on and i dropped my ps/2 like a bad habit
(just my little compliment)
>
> One rising concern is USB -- we support USB devices
> but not USB keyboards, and I don't remember the
> current state of USB mice.  Make sure the computer
> comes with a standard PS/2 keyboard if not mouse.
>

-George

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Mark Powers]

On Tue, Feb 18, 2003 at 01:52:31PM -0500, George Gensure wrote:
> USB mice have worked fabulously for me.
>
> % usb/usbd
> % usb/usbmouse
>
> turned my little intellimouse on and i dropped my ps/2 like a bad habit
> (just my little compliment)

hm, I have a wireless intellimouse -- big grey thing with two extra
buttons for your thumb -- that doesn't work in plan9. it gets configured
okay, but what it sends isn't what the driver expects and I can't make
sense of it (not that I've tried, really). the logitech cordless optical
works fine, however.

I love being rid of the cord and the mechanical ball, but the scroll
wheel is kind of annoying. shame nobody makes a wireless optical mouse
with a real middle button.

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Russ Cox wrote:
>SCSI controllers not so much.

LSI Logic/Symbios/NCR 53C810-based PCI SCSI controllers
seem like a good deal; I typically find them cheap at
computer shows.

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Geoff Collyer]

> LSI Logic/Symbios/NCR 53C810-based PCI SCSI controllers seem like a
> good deal

I think I put this in the Wiki but may have forgotten to send it to
the list: LSI Logic has bought Mylex (who bought Buslogic) and killed
the BT series of controllers that Plan 9 supports.  The
LSI/Symbios/NCR controllers in general are a good bet (but check the
driver source for supported models before buying), and are now the
only supported SCSI cards, *if you are buying new parts*.  So far, the
supported Mylex cards are still available used and it's possible that
retailers have stock of them.

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Jack Johnson]

Ronald G. Minnich wrote:
> has anybody tried the $200 Walmart PCs :-)

Not yet, but I'm curious as well.  They use the little Via C3 integrated
motherboards, if anyone else has tried those.

I was at a used computer store yesterday and they had a few dozen Sun
IPX/Classic/ClassicX for about $15 each.  I started thinking too bad 4th
Ed. doesn't support them anymore, but I might pick one up for nostalgia.
  Let it camp out with the BeBox.

-Jack

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Christian Grothaus]

andrey mirtchovski <mirtchov@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> wrote:
> ps: the new IBM R30+ laptops all come with Radeon7500 graphics. If mine
> arrives soon I may report on experiences with that :)

BTW: Has anyone tried the Thinkpad R31? AFAIK, it uses Intel 830MG
integrated graphics. Is this chipset (partly) supported? (I couldn't
find out whether it is compatible with a supported Intel chipset.)

Thanks

Christian

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Russ Cox]

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not much has changed in vga world in the
last few months.  i think the r31 is still
unsupported.  the particular i810 variant
in the x30 is also unsupported, though i
suspect it would not be hard to get going.

richard miller sent in code for the prosavage;
i think that's what is in the $799 laptop we were
discussing a few days ago.

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I tried the R31 several months ago and it didnt work, dont
know if the vga card is now supported.

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From: Christian Grothaus <christian.grothaus@uni-bielefeld.de>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 14:08:07 GMT
Message-ID: <3e5e1646_2@news.uni-bielefeld.de>

andrey mirtchovski <mirtchov@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> wrote:
> ps: the new IBM R30+ laptops all come with Radeon7500 graphics. If mine
> arrives soon I may report on experiences with that :)

BTW: Has anyone tried the Thinkpad R31? AFAIK, it uses Intel 830MG
integrated graphics. Is this chipset (partly) supported? (I couldn't
find out whether it is compatible with a supported Intel chipset.)

Thanks

Christian

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Jason Gurtz]

Russ Cox wrote:
> [...]i think the r31 is still
> unsupported.  the particular i810 variant
> in the x30 is also unsupported, though i
> suspect it would not be hard to get going.

I've seen that some folks use Xfree drivers as a models sometimes when
they try and develop vga drivers for plan9; today I noticed:

"Support added to the i810 driver for Intel 845G, 852GM, 855GM and 865G
integrated graphics chipsets, including 2D, 3D (DRI) and XVideo. Support
for the 830M has been improved, and XVideo support added."

in the release notes of the newly released XFree86-4.3.0  Perhaps
there's some new clues available for those who understand these types of
things.

Cheers,

~Jason

--

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Fco.J.Ballesteros]

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I tried the R31 several months ago and it didnt work, dont
know if the vga card is now supported.

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From: Christian Grothaus <christian.grothaus@uni-bielefeld.de>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 14:08:07 GMT
Message-ID: <3e5e1646_2@news.uni-bielefeld.de>

andrey mirtchovski <mirtchov@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> wrote:
> ps: the new IBM R30+ laptops all come with Radeon7500 graphics. If mine
> arrives soon I may report on experiences with that :)

BTW: Has anyone tried the Thinkpad R31? AFAIK, it uses Intel 830MG
integrated graphics. Is this chipset (partly) supported? (I couldn't
find out whether it is compatible with a supported Intel chipset.)

Thanks

Christian

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[mike]

Would that be this new satellite I have? Toshiba 1115-S103?  That is the
vid chipset it has, but alas no floppy...  but didn't i see a cd image
the last time i looked?  When will it make it to the distro, if it is
indeed supplied by Richard Miller?

Thanks.


Russ Cox wrote:
> not much has changed in vga world in the
> last few months.  i think the r31 is still
> unsupported.  the particular i810 variant
> in the x30 is also unsupported, though i
> suspect it would not be hard to get going.
>
> richard miller sent in code for the prosavage;
> i think that's what is in the $799 laptop we were
> discussing a few days ago.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop
> From:
> Fco.J.Ballesteros <nemo@plan9.escet.urjc.es>
> Date:
> Thu, 27 Feb 2003 17:45:32 +0100
> To:
> 9fans@cse.psu.edu
>
>
> I tried the R31 several months ago and it didnt work, dont
> know if the vga card is now supported.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop
> From:
> Christian Grothaus <christian.grothaus@uni-bielefeld.de>
> Date:
> Thu, 27 Feb 2003 14:08:07 GMT
> To:
> 9fans@cse.psu.edu
>
>
> andrey mirtchovski <mirtchov@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> wrote:
>
>>ps: the new IBM R30+ laptops all come with Radeon7500 graphics. If mine
>>arrives soon I may report on experiences with that :)
>
>
> BTW: Has anyone tried the Thinkpad R31? AFAIK, it uses Intel 830MG
> integrated graphics. Is this chipset (partly) supported? (I couldn't
> find out whether it is compatible with a supported Intel chipset.)
>
> Thanks
>
> Christian

--
Michael H. Collins
http://linuxlink.com
512-442-2009	512-656-9508

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[okamoto]

It'll start to dispatch from March 1, and it's too late for mr this time.
I'll consider it for my regular presentation tool to our students
from the next semester...  It has very affordable listprice, too.☺

Kenji  -- yes, I'm working even at Sunday

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Richard Miller]

> is it a prepackaged thing?  where?

Self-build with BN800E motherboard and slim case from
  http://www.linden-computech.com/booksizepclist.htm

But you should be able to plug a fanless C3 into any
socket370 motherboard.

> i would love to have
> a fanless machine.  then again, the rest of my office
> would still make plenty of noise.

There's still a power supply fan, but given the low power
requirements of the C3 you should be able to fit an
external PSU like the one on www.mini-itx.com

Note that for vga support with the VIA PL133 chipset,
you need to add device id 0x8A25 (ProSavage) to aux/vga
and kernel.  I'll send a boddle to 9trouble.

-- Richard

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Richard Miller]

> How much time can you stay up using the battery? (Or is your box
> a regular PC and not a mobile thing).

It's non-mobile.

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[jmk]

On Fri Feb 21 11:47:21 EST 2003, rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
> > I'm running Plan 9 on one of these (800mhz version, fanless).
> > No complaints.
>
> is it a prepackaged thing?  where?  i would love to have
> a fanless machine.  then again, the rest of my office
> would still make plenty of noise.

See www.mini-itx.com for some ideas.
The power is so low that you can run many of these with
a wall-wart.

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Russ Cox]

> I'm running Plan 9 on one of these (800mhz version, fanless).
> No complaints.

is it a prepackaged thing?  where?  i would love to have
a fanless machine.  then again, the rest of my office
would still make plenty of noise.

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Jack Johnson]

nigel@9fs.org wrote:
> Beware the Via C3 Eden ITX motherboard. Neither the ethernet,
> vga, or audio are supported.

That would be the same motherboard in the Walmart PCs and their ilk.
The Lindows/eNote Mobile PCs seem to use (slightly?) different chipsets.

There is also a new series of EPIA motherboards coming out (EPIA-M, I
think) with a revised chipset and features (DDR, FireWire, etc), that
might be more successful.

http://www.viavpsd.com/product/epia_m_spec.jsp?motherboardId=81

-Jack

P.S.

For what it's worth, I was thinking about this interview with Dennis

	http://unix.se/article/articleview/950/1/24

and his comments about just using NT and drawterm, and realized that
he's got a good point, if you have more than one box and it has Ethernet
support, you're really home free.  A drawterm and standalone CPU server
with either kfs or fossil and life isn't all that bad.  With it's lone
spare PCI slot, a $200 Walmart PC and a $20 supported NIC isn't awful to
do some experimentation.

I'm thinking of picking up one of those $20 Sun IPX I saw last weekend
and just running drawterm, vnc and rdesktop indefinitely.

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[nigel]

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Beware the Via C3 Eden ITX motherboard. Neither the ethernet,
vga, or audio are supported.

I have (partial) solutions.

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From: Richard Miller <miller@hamnavoe.demon.co.uk>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 16:03:40 0000
Message-ID: <757060dfdda1b526497f4ed627e4f045@hamnavoe.demon.co.uk>

>> VIA C3 933 MHz Processor,   <--- what's that?
>>
>> any opinion?
>
> The VIA C3 is a Pentium-compatible processor, typically on par with a
> PII about half it's speed, give or take.  They tend to be popular with
> the quiet PC crowd (and some of the blade server people) because they
> can be run fanless.

I'm running Plan 9 on one of these (800mhz version, fanless).
No complaints.

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Fco.J.Ballesteros]

> I'm running Plan 9 on one of these (800mhz version, fanless).
> No complaints.

How much time can you stay up using the battery? (Or is your box
a regular PC and not a mobile thing).

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Richard Miller]

>> VIA C3 933 MHz Processor,   <--- what's that?
>>
>> any opinion?
>
> The VIA C3 is a Pentium-compatible processor, typically on par with a
> PII about half it's speed, give or take.  They tend to be popular with
> the quiet PC crowd (and some of the blade server people) because they
> can be run fanless.

I'm running Plan 9 on one of these (800mhz version, fanless).
No complaints.

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Jack Johnson]

okamoto@granite.cias.osakafu-u.ac.jp wrote:
> As I got tired of debugging, I travelled into internet, and found
> Lindows Mobile PC, which may be nice also to Plan 9.

http://info.lindows.com/mobilepc/mobilepc.htm for anyone else curious.

> VIA C3 933 MHz Processor,   <--- what's that?
>
> any opinion?

The VIA C3 is a Pentium-compatible processor, typically on par with a
PII about half it's speed, give or take.  They tend to be popular with
the quiet PC crowd (and some of the blade server people) because they
can be run fanless.

They're extremely low power processors (10W consumption for the 1GHz C3)
so there's some potential for battery life to be OK, though the
processor usually isn't the largest power draw in a laptop (unless you
have a P4m, which can *dissipate* up to 8W of power while in sleep mode
and 35W number crunching -- though potentially with 4x the performance).

For more performance info:

http://www17.tomshardware.com/cpu/20020605/index.html
http://www.vanshardware.com/articles/2001/september/010921_Transmeta_v_C3/010921_Transmeta_v_C3.htm

-Jack

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Russ Cox]

Jmk pointed this one out to me yesterday.
It looks good.  The screen is a little small,
and I wish they would tell you something
about battery life.  We think we support all
the hardware.

The big picture made me think it was a
3-button touchpad.

Lindows is Linux with a Windows emulator
so that it can run Windows applications.

Russ

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Derek Fawcus]

On Fri, Feb 21, 2003 at 04:18:51PM +0900, okamoto@granite.cias.osakafu-u.ac.jp wrote:
> As I got tired of debugging, I travelled into internet, and found
> Lindows Mobile PC, which may be nice also to Plan 9.
> However, I cann't figure it out whether it has 3 button mouse pad.
> It looks like so...
> 12.1" 1024x768 TFT
> VIA C3 933 MHz Processor,   <--- what's that?

An x86 compatible processor made by VIA.  It has poor FPU performance but
reasonable integer performance.  It's basically an i686 but with a semi
implemented CMOV instruction.

> VIA VT8606(Twister-T) + VT82C686B chipset,
> Savage 4 AGP (which Russ's favurite chip?),
> Realtek 10/100 LAN chip,
> 20GB ATA HDD
> Lindows3.0 OS <---- what's it?

A Linux derived OS

> 10.43x8.66x0.91" AND 2.9lbs (1.6kg)!
>
> any opinion?

well if I was in the market for a laptop,  I might well buy one...

however,  what I'd really like is a light enougth pad computer - all
that I've seen so far are too heavy.

DF

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[okamoto]

As I got tired of debugging, I travelled into internet, and found
Lindows Mobile PC, which may be nice also to Plan 9.
However, I cann't figure it out whether it has 3 button mouse pad.
It looks like so...
12.1" 1024x768 TFT
VIA C3 933 MHz Processor,   <--- what's that?
VIA VT8606(Twister-T) + VT82C686B chipset,
Savage 4 AGP (which Russ's favurite chip?),
Realtek 10/100 LAN chip,
20GB ATA HDD
Lindows3.0 OS <---- what's it?

10.43x8.66x0.91" AND 2.9lbs (1.6kg)!

any opinion?

Kenji

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Philippe Anel]

At 20:08 18/02/03 -0500, you wrote:
> >> ps: the new IBM R30+ laptops all come with Radeon7500 graphics. If mine
> >> arrives soon I may report on experiences with that :)
> >
> > Oh!, Please let us know the results.
>
>don't get your hopes up.  a bunch of people have talked
>about writing a radeon7500 driver but i don't know anyone
>who has actually started.

I started !

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[okamoto]

> The current one I'm having has had its fair amount of falling off the table,
> cat chewing on the cable and munching chips while checking email, and the fact
> that its still surviving is speaking for itself.

I've never had such experience. ?
However, my Toshiba Tecra's cooling fan was dead...
I need more memory, such as 128 or 256MB for graphics.

Kenji

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[andrey mirtchovski]

You are pretty much right. And as much as my ability to complete a vga
driver may be questionable, I would try to do my best to provide enough
information so that 9fans will not be devoid of using IBM thinkpads in the
future :)

The current one I'm having has had its fair amount of falling off the table,
cat chewing on the cable and munching chips while checking email, and the fact
that its still surviving is speaking for itself. Too bad nothing else from IBM
I've touched was that good...

andrey

On Wed, 19 Feb 2003 okamoto@granite.cias.osakafu-u.ac.jp wrote:

> Hmmm.
>
> Besides, I assume that IBM is the only company who has 'three
> buttons' mouse pad in their notebook products.    Am I wrong?
>
> Kenji
>

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[okamoto]

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Hmmm.

Besides, I assume that IBM is the only company who has 'three
buttons' mouse pad in their notebook products.    Am I wrong?

Kenji

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From: "Russ Cox" <rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 20:08:04 -0500
Message-ID: <517f0b3cb85a58bb1e0da61d3ed6c07d@plan9.bell-labs.com>

>> ps: the new IBM R30+ laptops all come with Radeon7500 graphics. If mine
>> arrives soon I may report on experiences with that :)
>
> Oh!, Please let us know the results.

don't get your hopes up.  a bunch of people have talked
about writing a radeon7500 driver but i don't know anyone
who has actually started.

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[Russ Cox]

>> ps: the new IBM R30+ laptops all come with Radeon7500 graphics. If mine
>> arrives soon I may report on experiences with that :)
>
> Oh!, Please let us know the results.

don't get your hopes up.  a bunch of people have talked
about writing a radeon7500 driver but i don't know anyone
who has actually started.

Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop

[okamoto]

> ps: the new IBM R30+ laptops all come with Radeon7500 graphics. If mine
> arrives soon I may report on experiences with that :)

Oh!, Please let us know the results.
I may have to get one for presentation...
My Toshiba is too old now (48MB memory ;_;).

Kenji