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<h2>OpenBSD/i386</h2>

<hr>

<h3><font color=#0000e0>History and Status:</font></h3>

<p>
The i386 port has quite a few architecture specific changes from the
NetBSD/i386 port, but the major ones are:
<ul>
<li>Also runs on machines with 512MB of ram or more, does not crash.
<li>the addition of ISA bounce buffer support so that ISA scsi cards (ie.
	Adaptec 1542) can be used in machines with more than 16MB of memory.
<li>The same one GENERIC kernel works on all machines, whether it has
	BusLogic or Adaptec scsi cards.
<li>some APM and PCMCIA support (3c589, NE2000-clone, and COM ports)
<li>some DDB improvements
<li>OPTI mcd support
<li>ATAPI cdrom support
<li>P5/P6 improved NTP support
<li>pccons has userland replaceable keymaps, and screen blanking
<li>boot "-a" support like other ports (asks for root partition)
<li>floppy disk formatting
<li>Cyclades Cyclom serial driver
<li>faster (assembly) IP checksumming (typically 20% faster, up to 62% faster
	in some cases)
<li>vmstat -i prints interrupt information.
<li>latest rev of adaptec 2940 driver from FreeBSD
<li>supports "ep* at port ? irq ?"
<li>faster i386-specific `pccom' device driver.
<li>/dev/pctr pseudo-device & program for accessing the Pentium and PentiumPro
	performance counters.
<li>Fixed major i386 kernel interrupt race.
<li>Fixed UCONSOLE security hole without breaking xconsole.
<li>Much faster i387-specific libm available for those who want the option.
<li>ISA Plug-and-Play support
<li>the GPL FP emulator from Linux/Freebsd, for users who want to use it.
	Much better!
<li>Prefer partition type 166, so that OpenBSD can co-reside on the same
	disk as a 386BSD/NetBSD/FreeBSD install.
<li>Attempt to fault in a ptp; this avoids two ptp panic cases.
<li>RAW_PART is now 'c', not 'd'. It should start at 0, and cover your whole
	disk.
<li>Updated ncr driver, much more performance.
<li>3c59x and 3c9xx cards work.
<li>Can mount DOS file systems with cluster size > 16KB.
<li>Support for M$ IntelliMouse as a 3-button PS/2 mouse.
</ul>

<p>
<h3><font color=#0000e0>Installation with Other Operating Systems:</font></h3>
The OpenBSD/i386 port can be installed to share the system disks with
other operating systems such as MSDOS, Windows or Linux using the MSDOS
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 Notes for more details.

<p>
<h3><font color=#0000e0>Binary compatibility with other Operating Systems:</font></h3>
The OpenBSD/i386 port can run Linux, FreeBSD, BSD/OS,
SVR4 (including Solaris), and IBCS2 binaries.

<p>
<h3><font color=#0000e0>Supported Hardware:</font></h3>
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 architecures.  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.

<p>
OpenBSD does not currently support multiple processors, but will run using
one processor on a multi-processor system board.

<p>
<ul>
<li> All mainstream i386 architecture CPU chips, including 386,
	486, Pentium, Pentium-Pro and compatibles such
	as the AMD K5 series and Cyrix cpu family.  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.
<li> Basically all standard ISA, VLB, PCI, or PCMCIA bus based machines.
<li> Floppy controllers.
<li> MFM, ESDI, IDE, and RLL hard disk controllers.
<li> SCSI host adapters:
  <ul>
  <li> Adaptec AHA-154xA, -B, -C, and -CF
  <li> Adaptec AHA-174x
  <li> Adaptec AIC-6260 and AIC-6360 based boards, including the
	Adaptec AHA-152x and the SoundBlaster SCSI host adapter.
	(Note that you cannot boot from these boards if they do not have
	a boot ROM; only the AHA-152x and motherboards using this chip
	are likely to be bootable, consequently.)
  <li> Adaptec AIC-7770-based SCSI host adapters (including the
	Adaptec AHA-274x, AHA-284x families).
  <li> Adaptec AHA-[23]94x[W] cards and some onboard PCI designs using the
	AIC7870 chip.
  <li> Buslogic 54x (Adaptec AHA-154x clones)
  <li> BusLogic 445, 74x, 9xx  (But not the new "FlashPoint" series
	of BusLogic SCSI adapters)
  <li> Symbios Logic (NCR) 53C8xx-based PCI SCSI host adapters
	(Including generic/no name cards, old ASUS cards, the DTC-3130 series,
	Diamond Fireport series, etc.)
  <li> Ultrastor 14f, 34f, and (possibly) 24f
  <li> Seagate/Future Domain ISA SCSI adapter cards, including
    <ul>
    <li> ST01/02
    <li> Future Domain TMC-885
    <li> Future Domain TMC-950
    </ul>
  <li> WD-7000 SCSI host adapters.
  </ul>
 
<li> MDA, CGA, VGA, SVGA, and HGC Display Adapters.
	(Note that not all of the display adapters OpenBSD/i386
	can work with are supported by X.
	See the XFree86 FAQ for more information.)

<li> Serial ports:
  <ul>
  <li> 8250/16450-based ports
  <li> 16550-based ports
  <li> ST16650-based ports
  <li> AST-style 4-port serial boards <sup>(1)</sup>
  <li> BOCA 8-port serial cards <sup>(1)</sup>
  <li> Cyclades Cyclom-{4, 8, 16}Y serial boards <sup>(1)</sup>
  <li> IBM PC-RT 4-port serial boards <sup>(1)</sup>
  </ul>

<li> Parallel ports.

<li> PCMCIA: most chipsets.
  
<li> Adaptec and Efficient Networking ATM cards - Mail chuck@openbsd.org
	to get this entry updated.

<li> Digital DEFPA PCI FDDI adapters.

<li> Ethernet adapters:
  <ul>

  <li> AMD LANCE and PCnet-based ISA Ethernet adapters, including:
    <ul>
    <li> Novell NE1500T
    <li> Novell NE2100
    <li> Kingston 21xx
    </ul>

  <li> AMD PCnet-based PCI Ethernet adapters, including:
    <ul>
    <li> BOCALANcard/PCI
    <li> AT&T StarLAN 10, EN100, and StarLAN Fiber
    </ul>

  <li> 3COM 3c501
  <li> 3COM 3c503
  <li> 3COM 3c505 <sup>(1)</sup>
  <li> 3COM 3c507
  <li> 3COM 3c509, 3c579, 3c59x and 3c9xx
  <li> 3COM 3c589 PCMCIA Ethernet

  <li> Digital DC21x4x-based PCI Ethernet adapters, including:
    <ul>
    <li> older SMC EtherPower 10, 10/100 (PCI only!)
    <li> older LinkSys 10, 10/100
    <li> Znyx ZX34X
    <li> Cogent EM100
    <li> Digital DE450
    <li> Digital DE500
    <li> Almost all other variants work.
    </ul>

  <li> BICC Isolan <sup>(1)</sup> -- not recently tested
  <li> SMC/WD 8003, 8013, and the SMC "Elite16" ISA boards
  <li> SMC/WD 8216 (the SMC "Elite16 Ultra" ISA boards)  (See special care notice in <A HREF="ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/i386/INSTALL.i386">INSTALL.i386</A>)
  <li> SMC 8416 ("EtherEZ") cards should work, in memory mapped mode and with PnP mode disabled
  <li> Novell NE1000, NE2000 (PCI and ISA variants thereof)
  <li> Intel EtherExpress 16
  <li> Intel EtherExpress PRO/10
  <li> Intel EtherExpress PRO/100B and 100+ cards.
  </ul>

<li> Tape drives:
  <ul>
  <li> Most SCSI tape drives
  <li> Most SCSI tape changers
  <li> QIC-02 and QIC-36 format (Archive- and Wangtek- compatible)
	tape drives <sup>(1) (2)</sup>
  </ul>

<li> CD-ROM drives:
  <ul>
  <li> Mitsumi CD-ROM drives <sup>(1) (2)</sup>
	[Note: The Mitsumi driver device probe is known
	to cause trouble with several devices!]
  <li> Most SCSI CD-ROM drives
  <li> Most ATAPI IDE CD-ROM drives
  </ul>

<li> Mice:
  <ul>
  <li> "Logitech"-style bus mice <sup>(1) (2)</sup>
  <li> "Microsoft"-style bus mice <sup>(1) (2)</sup>
  <li> "PS/2"-style mice <sup>(1) (2)</sup>
  <li> Serial mice (uses serial port driver)
  </ul>

<li> APM power management.

<li> Sound Cards:
  <ul>
  <li> SoundBlaster <sup>(1) (2)</sup>
  <li> Gravis Ulrasound and Ultrasound Max <sup>(1) (2)</sup>
  <li> [The following drivers are not extensively tested]
    <ul>
    <li> Personal Sound System <sup>(1) (2)</sup>
    <li> Windows Sound System <sup>(1) (2)</sup>
    <li> ProAudio Spectrum <sup>(1) (2)</sup>
    </ul>
  </ul>
</ul>

<p>
<sup>(1)</sup> Drivers for hardware marked with (1) are NOT included on the
distribution floppies.  Except as noted above, all other drivers are
present on both kernel-copy disks.  Also, at the present time, the
distributed kernels support only one SCSI host adapter per machine.
OpenBSD normally allows more, though, so if you have more than one, you
can use all of them by compiling a custom kernel once OpenBSD is
installed.
</p>

<p> 
<sup>(2)</sup> Support for devices marked with (2) IS included in the 
"generic" kernels, although it is not in the kernel on the installation floppy.
</p>

<p>
<h3><font color=#0000e0>Unsupported Hardware</font></h3>
<ul>
<li> "Micro Channel" MCA bus used in many IBM PS/2 models.
<li> NCR 5380-based SCSI host adapters.
<li> AdvanSys SCSI host adapters.
<li> QIC-40 and QIC-80 tape drives.  (Those are the tape drives that connect to the floppy disk controller.)
<li> Multiprocessor Pentium and Pentium Pro systems.  (Though they should run fine using one processor only.)
<li> Sony and Panasonic proprietary CDROM interfaces.
<li> Frame grabber cards (ie. Meteor or BT848)
<li> Parallel-port ZIP drives.
<li> Tape drives that hook up to the floppy controller.
<li> Unfortunately, many PCMCIA peripherals. 
</ul>
</p>

<hr>
<p>
<a href=ftp.html>Snapshots are made available from time to time.</a>

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<small>$OpenBSD: i386.html,v 1.59 1998/03/17 06:02:56 downsj Exp $</small>

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