Ultra 1 support

[Gheorghe Ardelean]

Hi,

> I have been looking to install free-bsd on my Ultra 1 Creator, but on
> the unsupported machines is listed the Ultra 1, however the 'Ultra 1E'
> is listed as supported. What is the 'E' version? I have never heard of
> such, it is the Creator?

Ultra 1E is definitely supported (to some extent also a plain Ultra1). It
has an 100BaseTX hme(4) Ethernet interface (while the plain Ultra 1 has
an 10BaseT interface which is not yet supported). Ultra 1E has also a
Creator frame buffer which is supported by FreeBSD. IIRC E in 1E comes
from Enterprise version!

There is an easy way to recognize an 1E from plain Ultra 1 by looking at
the Ultra 1 logo plate on the case. On 1E the number 1 is written in a red
circle while on plain ultra 1 is written in some sort of teal circle.

To summarize:

 -on 1E we support the onboard disk controller + onboard ethernet

 -on plain Ultra 1 we support ONLY the onboard esp(4) diskcontroller
  and one has to use a specially build loader (without gzip
  support -- for more on this please read this list's archives).
  (at least this apply for 6.0-RELEASE)

To make also a plane Ultra1 useful one has to give it 1E "flavors" by
installing an SBUS hme interface (this is what I have done to mine) and
eventually an SBUS Creator Card.

Regards,

Johny.