help w/ Dell PowerEdge sc420

[Andy W. Clements]

On Fri, 2005-04-29 at 11:33 -0700, Tom Lord wrote:
> I'm trying to bring FreeBSD up on a Dell PowerEdge sc420.
> 
> The machine has a built-in (on the motherboard) Ethernet engine
> described as "Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Adaptor".  The 
> BIOS screens accessible during booting don't provide much by
> way of additional useful information, afaict.
> 

The best thing to do is to look on the FreeBSD site and see if the
hardware is supported: 
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.2R/hardware-i386.html

> I am bringing up a slightly old FreeBSD -- 5.2 -- with hopes of
> getting ethernet support up, plugging into a DSL line, and upgrading
> over the net.
> 
> Alas, 5.2 does not seem to detect the Ethernet engine.  There is no
> "/dev/bge", for example.   Thus, I can't even get to the "upgrade" 
> step short of busting out an old modem :-)
> 
> Help?  I'm unfamiliar with:
> 
>     (i) how FreeBSD autodetects this kind of hardware
>     (ii) how to brute-force install a driver by hand and try to help
>          it find this hardware
> 

The handbook also offers information in regards to the configuration
file for recompiling the kernel with the driver in it, if the driver was
not placed in the generic kernel.
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/kernelconfig.html

The Handbook and the hardware requirements are also the CDs, if you are
installing from that.

> I am competent to rebuild the kernel if there is some config file 
> I ought to tweak although it's been a few years since I've done so -- 
> so hints about that process, if necessary, would be appreciated.
> 
> Alternatively (but less desirably): if I scrape up my pennies and buy
> a more recent distro will I have better results?
> 
> Thanks,
> -t
> 

Have fun,
Andy

-- 
Andy Clements
Chief Engineer
C & H Software L.L.C.
awc at candhsoftware.com