From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <9015471ded135864e5711abe3da86b4d@plan9.bell-labs.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Off the shelves plan9-compatible desktop
From: "Russ Cox" <rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com>
In-Reply-To: <8ef9380a.0302181010.5b1f969f@posting.google.com>
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Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 13:27:39 -0500
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> 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