-The OpenBSD/i386 port can be installed to share the system disks with
-other operating systems such as MS-DOS, Windows or Linux using the MS-DOS
-MBR/partition scheme and an optional boot selector. Everyday operation is
-trouble free, but setup requires care and Windows '95 installation is known
-to be careless about pre-existing MBR/partition information.
-See the Installation Guide and
-Disk Setup Manual for more details.
+
-
Install media
-A number of install options exist:
+
+OpenBSD/i386 runs on the standard PC's and clones, with a wide variety
+of processors, I/O bus architectures and peripherals supported.
+
+
+
+
Table of contents
+
-
CD boot:
-Booting off the CD provides an El Torito 2.88MB floppy image
-that contains almost all OpenBSD drivers. This also includes minimal USB
-support (umass and ukbd devices).
-For the latest list of drivers available on this image, take a look at the
-
-RAMDISK_CD config file.
-
Floppy A:
-This 1.44MB floppy image contains the most common drivers. It is designed to
-cover the most typical PC. As a general rule, you will find that the missing
-drivers are ones which need large microcodes to run, such as for rare scsi
-cards, gigabit ethernet cards, or RAID devices.
-For the latest list of drivers available on this image, take a look at the
-
-RAMDISK config file.
-
Floppy B:
-This 1.44MB floppy image contains the drivers that are missing on Floppy A.
-This media is designed to help people setting up modern server type systems.
-It contains support for pretty much all the SCSI and RAID drivers, gigabit
-ethernet cards, and such. Due to space considerations, you will find that
-some other drivers are missing. In particular, support for most PCMCIA devices
-are missing, as are really ancient hardware devices.
-For the latest list of drivers available on this image, take a look at the
-
-RAMDISKB config file.
-
Floppy C:
-This 1.44MB floppy image contains many cardbus and pcmcia device drivers. This
-media is designed for installing on laptops. In most cases, one would discover
-that Floppy A also works, but the odd laptop might benefit more from using this
-image.
-For the latest list of drivers available on this image, take a look at the
-
-RAMDISKC config file.
+
-Use the method that works best for you.
+The OpenBSD/i386 port has been present since the inception of the project.
+Over the years, more and more hardware support has been written
+specifically for OpenBSD (such as the cryptographic accelerator drivers),
+or adapted from FreeBSD and NetBSD.
+
-
Binary compatibility with other Operating Systems:
-The OpenBSD/i386 port can run Linux, FreeBSD, BSD/OS,
-SVR4 (including Solaris), and IBCS2 binaries.
+
+
+
Current status:
-
Supported Hardware:
-The OpenBSD/i386 port works across a broad range of standard PC's and clones,
-with a wide variety of processors and I/O bus architectures. It can be expected
-to install and run with minimal difficulty on most current products.
-The cases where problems may be encountered are typically older proprietary
-PC's, Laptops or specialized server boxes that rely on a custom BIOS to paper
-over implementation differences.
+
+It can be expected to install and run with minimal difficulty on most current
+hardware.
+Machines using custom BIOS (such as older proprietary PC's, laptops, and some
+specialized server machines) may cause problems.
+
-OpenBSD does not currently support multiple processors (SMP), but will run
-using one processor on a multi-processor system board.
+Although OpenBSD/i386 does not currently support multiple processors (SMP),
+it will run on multi-processor system boards, using only one processor.
+
+Through its binary compatibility layer, OpenBSD/i386 can run Linux, FreeBSD,
+BSD/OS, SVR4 (including Solaris) and IBCS2 binaries, to some extent. Most
+applications will work flawlessly.
+
+
+
+X-Window support is available for most graphics cards, using either recent
+XFree (as of OpenBSD 3.2, 4.2.1) servers whenever possible,
+or XFree 3.3.6 servers otherwise.
+
+
+
+
+
Installation with other operating systems:
+
+
+
+OpenBSD/i386 can be installed to share the system disks with other operating
+systems, such as MS-DOS, Windows or Linux, using the MBR/partition table
+scheme, and an optional boot selector program.
+Everyday operation is trouble free, but setup requires care, and several
+operating systems, such as Windows 95, are known to be careless about
+pre-existing MBR information.
+
+
+
+Also, some laptop computers use a specific partition as suspend-to-disk
+storage, which should not be clobbered.
+
+ Booting off the CD provides an El Torito 2.88MB floppy image
+ that contains almost all OpenBSD drivers.
+ This also includes minimal USB support (storage devices and keyboard).
+ For the latest list of drivers available on this image, take a look at the
+ RAMDISK_CD
+ kernel configuration file.
+
+
Floppy A (floppy32.fs)
+
+ This 1.44MB floppy image contains the most common drivers.
+ It is designed to cover the most typical PC. As a general rule, you will
+ find that the missing drivers are ones which need large microcodes to run,
+ such as for rare scsi cards, gigabit ethernet cards, or RAID devices.
+ For the latest list of drivers available on this image, take a look at the
+ RAMDISK
+ kernel configuration file.
+
+
Floppy B (floppyB32.fs)
+
+ This 1.44MB floppy image contains some drivers that are missing from
+ Floppy A.
+ This media is designed to help people setting up modern server type systems.
+ It contains support for pretty much all the SCSI and RAID drivers, gigabit
+ ethernet cards, and such.
+ Due to space considerations, you will find that some other drivers are
+ missing. In particular, support for most PCMCIA devices is missing, as
+ for really ancient hardware devices.
+ For the latest list of drivers available on this image, take a look at the
+ RAMDISKB
+ kernel configuration file.
+
+
Floppy C (floppyC32.fs)
+
+ This 1.44MB floppy image contains many cardbus and PCMCIA device drivers.
+ This media is designed for installing on laptops.
+ In most cases, one would discover that Floppy A also works, but the odd
+ laptop might benefit more from using this image.
+ For the latest list of drivers available on this image, take a look at the
+ RAMDISKC
+ kernel configuration file.
+
+
+
+
+
+
Supported hardware:
+
+
Most laptops are supported. We have a page
-that details the specifics of most common laptops.
+that details the specifics of some common laptops.
+
The list of supported hardware is relevant to OpenBSD-current. It will
differ slightly from the support provided in the latest release version.
+
-
+
+
Processors
+
-Processors
-All CPU chips compatible with the Intel 80386 (i386) architecture:
+
+OpenBSD does not currently support multiple processors (SMP), but will run
+using one processor on a multi-processor system board.
+
+
+
+All CPU chips compatible with the Intel 80386 (i386) architecture are
+supported:
-
386/486 (SX/DX/DX2/DX4)
-
Intel Pentium/Pentium-MMX
-
Intel Pentium Pro/II/III/Celeron/Xeon
-
Intel Pentium IV
-
AMD 6x86
-
AMD K5/K6/K6-2/K6-3
-
AMD Athlon/Duron
-
Cyrix MediaGX/M1/M2
-
VIA Cyrix III
-
Rise mP6
-
IDT WinChip
-
NexGen 586
-
NS Geode GX1
-
Transmeta TMS3200, TMS5400, TMS5600
+
386/486 (SX/DX/DX2/DX4)
+
Intel Pentium/Pentium-MMX
+
Intel Pentium Pro/II/III/Celeron/Xeon
+
Intel Pentium IV
+
AMD 6x86
+
AMD K5/K6/K6-2/K6-3
+
AMD Athlon/Duron
+
Cyrix MediaGX/M1/M2
+
VIA Cyrix III
+
Rise mP6
+
IDT WinChip
+
NexGen 586
+
NS Geode GX1
+
Transmeta TMS3200, TMS5400, TMS5600
+
+
+
+Regular floating-point coprocessors, when not built-in the processor,
+are also supported. If no floating-point hardware is present in the system,
+OpenBSD can use software emulation.
+
+
+
Everything that is a clone of the 386 or up should work fine.
The only CPU that is known to work poorly (due to flawed motherboard designs)
is the Cyrix 386DLC.
+
+
+
Buses
+
-Buses
+
-
All standard ISA, EISA, VLB, and PCI bus based machines, including:
-
-
Intel 450GX/KX based machines.
-
Intel 450NX based machines.
-
ServerWorks chipset-based machines.
-
- (We just had to mention those last three, since they are the hardest to support).
-
+
All standard ISA, EISA, VLB, and PCI bus based machines, including:
+
+
Intel 450GX/KX based machines.
+
Intel 450NX based machines.
+
ServerWorks chipset-based machines.
+
+ (We just had to mention those last three, since they are the hardest to support).
Both 16-Bit PCMCIA PC Cards and newer 32-Bit CardBus support.
Universal Serial Bus (USB).
The MCA bus found in various official IBM PCs is not supported.
+
+
+
Bus interfaces
+
-Bus interfaces
+
-
Standard PCI-PCI bridges, including PCI expansion backplanes (ppb)
-
QIC-02 and QIC-36 format (Archive- and Wangtek- compatible)
tape drives (wt) (*)
+
+
+
Display Adapters
+
-Display Adapters
+
-
MDA, CGA, EGA, VGA, SVGA, and HGC Display Adapters
+
MDA, CGA, EGA, and HGC display adapters
+(pcdisplay).
+
VGA-compatible and SVGA display adapters (including PCI and AGP cards)
+(vga).
-Note that not all of the display adapters OpenBSD/i386
-can work with are supported by X.
-(See the XFree86 FAQ for more information.)
+Note that not all of the display adapters OpenBSD/i386 supports
+can be used under X-Window (please refer the
+XFree86 FAQ for more information).
+
+
If a device does not work, be sure to mail the output of dmesg(8)
to dmesg@openbsd.org, and we will try to add support.
-
+
-ISAPNP Cards
+
Roughly said, the following cards definitely work.
Others may work as well; support is continually being improved.
@@ -1021,6 +1248,7 @@
"OPL3-SA3 Snd System, YMH0022, PNPB02F, "
"RealTek Plug & Play Ethernet Ca, RTL8019, PNP80D6, "
+
(G) Drivers for hardware marked with (G) are only included in
@@ -1048,10 +1276,11 @@
GENERIC kernel, and will require you to compile a custom kernel to enable it.
![[OpenBSD]](images/smalltitle.gif){kind=small}
-www@openbsd.org
+
+