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David Holm wrote: |
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>On Sunday 26 June 2005 22:08, Colin wrote: |
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> |
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> |
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>>I've been thinking about creating a MythTV server. I've got two Power |
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>>Mac 8500's and a PowerCenter 180 (low-profile) lying around that I'm not |
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>>using, but the add-in cards are PC-only (an IDE card and a TV tuner). |
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>> |
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>>The Mac OS doesn't detect the ATA card, never tried the TV tuner. When |
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>>Gentoo boots, would it detect the cards when the PCI bus gets coldplugged? |
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>> |
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>> |
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>The TV tuner should work as long as it's supported by a Linux driver. The IDE |
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>card might be another issue. Normally they come with an x86 BIOS that needs |
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>to be executed on boot so the card is initialized properly before Linux |
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>drivers takes over. On the Pegasos for instance there is an x86 emulator in |
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>the firmware that can initialize cards with an x86 BIOS, Apple does not have |
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>this feature. |
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>I'm not saying that it's not going to work but afaik it won't work in a Mac |
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>for the reason given above. You should get a card with an FMOD driver (a |
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>driver that runs in open firmware) a.k.a. a card made for Mac. One made for |
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>Sun/SPARC or any other platform which uses Open Firmware should work too. |
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>It's too bad x86 has to live 30 years in the past and rely on stupid |
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>architecture-dependant BIOS:es. If they were using Open Firmware like the |
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>modern computer world all cards would be virtually platform independent. |
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> |
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> |
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I remember trying the card in an HP Pavilion. Instead of initializing |
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the RAID BIOS, it gave an error. However, in Windows, the two extra IDE |
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channels were installed and the drives showed up just fine. Anyway, |
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I'll give it a shot. |
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<rant> |
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I agree, BIOSes are pretty stupid. I'm a PC user most of the time (but |
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I just bought a beautiful Lombard to take to school as my primary |
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computer, which will have OS X/Gentoo). All BIOSes do is just slow down |
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your boot-up time. First, the graphics card's BIOS loads, then your |
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system BIOS loads and does all the boot-up tests, then your network |
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card's BIOS loads, then your RAID controller's BIOS... oh god, that's |
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the worst BIOS of all. It takes like 30 seconds just to reach the |
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bootloader, and that's with all the quick boot options turned on. I |
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just wish BIOSes followed some kind of standard so I could LinuxBIOS |
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every PC I use. |
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</rant> |
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-- |
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Colin |
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|
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-- |
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