🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2blqpd$2m6@news.umi.com> jdc@umi.com (Jon Cardwell) writes:
>
>>I cannot install UnixWare from Univel (SVR4.2; Novell) because
>>(I'm 95% sure) of the strange 1K of "ext. BIOS" that the Micronics motherboard
>>is mapping into base memory, starting at 639k. This is an inexcusable
>>engineering KLUDGE that Micronics Tech. support people won't 
>>admit to being a bug. Now, if they'd have just fixed it, and put
>>a newer Flash BIOS up on Micronics BBS, and UNIX would install
>>after eliminating the annoying "1K Ext. BIOS", then I would
>>be one of many, many, happy Gateway2000 customers. But,
>>this apparently will not come to pass.
>>
>>What I'm now doing, instead of just returning the machines outright,
>>is I'm swapping the Micronics EISA/VLB motherboards with the previous
>>"Anigma"-brand EISA (no VLB) motherboards. I'm also swapping
>>the Diamond Speedstar Pro VLB VGA cards with the Diamond Speedstar 24X
>>VGA cards that used to be sold with the previous 66E's. What gets
>>me a little steamed is that they're charging me $210.00 US difference
>>per motherboard (including the VGA cards) for a total of $420.00.
>>This amount for the "older" motherboards and SVGA cards that I
>>had originally wanted in the first place back in September when I
>>originally ordered the machines!!!! If you look at their ad from
>>a september issue of a PC magazine you'll notice that the "base"
>>4DX2-66E system is priced at $3,495. Well, that's the same price
>>that they are now, except that they put in a micronics EISA/VLB
>>motherboard and a different VGA card.
>
>But Now:
>Well, I ordered the older motherboards, and had to pay the 'difference'
>of $420 last thursday. The tech. support person who handled it for me
>assured me that they would get 'priority' status, and get shipped
>out Fed-X overnight. Well, I checked this morning, and they haven't even
>shipped yet!!!! I will NEVER buy another GW2k system again, even if
>the OLDER motherboards *do* allow me to install UnixWare, and not
>PANIC after the first boot disc is read in.
>
>>
>>I get the impression that this 1K "Ext. BIOS" thing is a known
>>bug with the micronics EISA/VLB motherboard, but using MS-DOS's
>>EMM386.EXE extended memory manager, the entire 640K of base
>>memory is available; therefore, the "1K Ext. BIOS" problem
>>(as seen when running Gateway2000's own QAPLUS program!)
>>can be endured for the time being. Not in my case
>>unfortunately, as I'm probably part of a minority of user's trying
>>to install UnixWare from Univel on such a system.
>
>Has ANYBODY been able to install UnixWare (SVR4.2 from Univel)
>on one of the new GW2K EISA/VLB systems???
>
>>
>>I'm curious, is anybody else out there running/trying to run/trying
>>to install UNIX (ie; UnixWare, Interactive, etc) on a Gateway2000
>>4DX2-66E system??? If so, what kind of motherboard does it have???
>>
>>--Jon Cardwell
>>University Microfilms International
>
>--Jon Cardwell
>University Microfilms International



	We also had a problem with this setup.  Ours is:

	GW2K 4DX2-66 EISA-VESA,
	Diamond SpeedStar PRO VL with 1 MB of memory.
	AHA-1742A SCSI board
	3Com EtherLink III 3C509 TP
	NEC MultiSync 3FGe Monitor
	1 GB hardrive
	
	But our problem was different though.  The machine came
with MS Windows pre-installed so we used it to test the machine.
When we ran the MS Win setup icon the machine would freeze and
a message would come up on the screen that said memory parity error.
After fail attempts to fix this problmes over the phone,  Gateway just
shipped us another motherboard, a Micronics.

      This motherboard has worked flawlessly, well almost.  More on that later.
We installed the UnixWare Application Server and the installation was also
flawless in the first try. *sigh*  We were amazed ourselves.
Since then we have installed the new drivers available for the AHA-1742A board
so we can now use it in enhanced mode.  Just yesterday I got in touch
with someone at Novell who is working on video drivers for our SpeedStar
video board. They sent us and early release version. I installed it today and
it is working fine. 

	Now,  the almost flawless motherboard. This has nothing to do with
UnixWare.  When we installed the 3Com EtherLink III 3C509TP board
it kept being reported as being in a slot two numbers lower
than the actual slot. In other words, if we put the board in slot 5
when we rebooted, the machine says that board is in slot 3.  We tried
a lot things to fix this but to no avail.  The ECU cf to configure
the motherboard didn't work either. Finally we gave up and
installed an SMC Ethercard Plus Elite 16 card.  This one works great.
At this point we don't know if the motherbard is at fault or maybe the
3Com board is bad.  If anybody knows,  let us know!

	For information purposes.  We also installed the Personal Edition
of UnixWare in a Dell 245SL, GateWay 386-33, and this one is the kicker
a former Souther Computer XT. Huh?  Well, it used to be an XT.
We upgraded the machine to a 386-40 MHZ ISA bus by changing the motherbard.
We installed a motherboard by Mainboard.  This board does not uses the Intel
chip.  It uses a Cyrix Cx486DLC chip.  We replaced the disk controler
with an AHA-1542C SCSI board + SCSI hardrive.  Now this former slow XT
machine is one souped up worksation. All for about $700.00

	In any case,  we have used UnixWare with a lot of different hardware.
Both on the supported list but mostly on the unsupported one.
Sometimes we feel that we should be an official beta test site for UnixWare.