PWS500a (Mitia) first install

[Michael Smith]

> I bought a used PWS500a with two 2 GB disks attached to an Adaptec2940(UW)
> SCSI controller and a Toshiba ATAPI CD-ROM drive attached to a second SCSI
> bus...
> 
> I would be happy if someone could give me some advice what I should buy and
> how I should proceed to get the box running freebsd 4.11. I thought of
> buying an IDE disk and removing the 2 small SCSI disks which have Windows/NT
> 4 installed on them. I already opened the box and detected that there isn't
> much space left so I doubt whether I find a place where I can put the IDE
> drive.

Ulrich

Sever or eight years ago I got a similar PWS433a -- 2 2GB SCSI drives
on a 2940UW and a Toshiba SCSI CD-ROM drive. I replaced the Adaptec
card with a Qlogic-based card from Tekram. It was cheap and works
perfectly. For FreeBSD installs, I've always booted from the CD-ROM
drive and installed to the SCSI drive (once I got the new SCSI card).

It's been running FreeBSD ever since. It's running 4.11 perfectly
right now. I've used it as a workstation, and now it's a server. You
may encounter problems getting XFree86 or Xorg running with modern
video cards. I've got an old Matrox Millenium II and it worked fine
(though I haven't run X on it in years).  It's a fantastic machine --
built like a tank.

Good luck!

-- 
Michael A. Smith <msmith at code-fu.com>
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance
of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who
have too little." --Franklin Delano Roosevelt