Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!cica!iuvax!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uicsl.csl.uiuc.edu!brando
From: brando@uicsl.csl.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: Network/Ethernet cards
Message-ID: <40800014@uicsl.csl.uiuc.edu>
Date: 14 Jun 90 14:16:00 GMT
References: <473@dptechno.UUCP>
Lines: 22
Nf-ID: #R:dptechno.UUCP:473:uicsl.csl.uiuc.edu:40800014:000:1121
Nf-From: uicsl.csl.uiuc.edu!brando    Jun 14 09:16:00 1990



I obviously don't know of the experiences you have had with Ethernet cards and
other "add-ons", but from my experience in building quite a few 386/486 boxes,
I can tell you that the particular type of motherboard/BIOS combination can
many times yield an "uncompatiable" system.

For example: when I purchased my AMI motherboard and pieced together the rest
of the box, everything advertised was correct; yes the machine would run DOS.
After installing Interactive UNIX on the box, everything was less than 
operating. I started having fallouts (white lines across the screen) with my
older video card, tape drive and mouse driver problems running X, and the like.

I not "Joe Expert" on building 386 machines, nor am I qualified to call myself
an expert on installing Unix on those machines, but I can tell you that many
more factors affect a Unix box, than do a DOS machine. For one thing, I 
believe Unix is much more picky about interrupts. Newer versions of SCO and
Interactive I believe support shareable interrupts, but older versions did not.

Hope this helps a little so the airwaves weren't wasted...

Brandon