[svlug] Want a dial up server!

[Rick Moen]

begin Jacob Hunter quotation:

> I am sorry when i said internal i meant integrated, as in on the
> motherboard. 

No problem.  I just realised that the answer's easy to find out, then,
since you said the machine is an HP Vectra XP/60.  I just searched
Google for:

    "Vectra XP" ethernet

This quickly verified that it's an AMD PCNET ISA chipset.  So, you'll
have absolutely no problem with any Linux distribution, on that ethernet
device.  It should autodetect, in fact.

Searching Google for:

    "Vectra XP/60"

...we turn up the following facts:

Video chipset is an S3 Corporation model 86C928, with 2MB video RAM.
(Not important, since you won't run X there -- but just in case you're 
curious.)

Unit is pre-ATA2, and therefore the ROMs do not directly address IDE
drives over 504MB.  If you upgrade the hard drive, this will affect
Linux only in making booting a little more complicated.  (Linux uses
the ROMs only for the initial boot.  You can alternatively switch to
floppy boot, at that time.)

However, you can download a ROM BIOS upgrade from
http://www.support.vectra.hp.com/vectrasupport/indexes/Driver22.html .
Run from MS-DOS, this upgrade program will install BIOS revision
y.05.07, dated February 10, 1999.  Doing so _may_ provide full support
for large IDE hard drives.  You should probably upgrade the BIOS, in any
event.

On-board serial port is said by HP to be "16550 UART compatible" --
which doesn't mean much, as worded.

Motherboard has six SIMM sockets (3 pairs). Each socket pair can each
accept either 4MB, 8MB, 16MB, or 32MB SIMM pairs.  This is old-type
72-pin, 70 nanosecond "fast-page" parity memory.  Maximum is thus 192MB.
(Unfortunately, it can accept only accept a special HP-specific type.
Ask a RAM vendor, if interested, but it's probably not worth it.)

-- 
Cheers,                   "Teach a man to make fire, and he will be warm 
Rick Moen                 for a day.  Set a man on fire, and he will be warm
rick at linuxmafia.com       for the rest of his life."   -- John A. Hrastar