I just came into posssession of an HP JetDirect 4000 Print Server (for free). It is a rackmount box that is 2.5"H x 12.5"D. Inside is a small motherboard, 5GB IDE drive and a power supply. On the front is an LCD display and a membrane-type keypad (used for setting the IP and navigating the menu). On the back is a fan, one serial port and one ethernet port.
The motherboard has the following on it: Cyrix GXM-266GP CPU; Cyrix CX5530 chipset; PCNet-Fast ethernet chip; PC97307-ICE/VUL SuperI/O chip; KS86P0004AD 8-bit uP (for the LCD and keypad); 64MB PC-100 SDRAM. There is no floppy, video, 2nd serial, or other peripherals on the board (lots of parts are missing, however). Although the device was designed to be a print server, the hard drive is loaded with a minimal RedHat 7.3, Samba, Apache, some HP software for the admin web interface and some HP software to handle the LCD/keypad. The serial port is used for a UPS (specifially APC). My first thought is that this would be a good device to use as a dedicated NTP server. Is anyone aware of any particular problems with the described hardware under FreeBSD? Speaking of which, what version of FreeBSD should I use? I am comfortable with Linux, but have no experience with FreeBSD. I did find some good info about building a "mini" FreeBSD for use with a CompactFlash card/adapter. If there are any big problems with using the Cyrix CPU with FreeBSD, the CPU is socketted. Of course, I don't know if a Pentium will be happy on a Cyrix chipset motherboard or not. Although the BIOS is a modified Phoenix ver 4.0 (displays a boot-up self-test on the LCD and may support BOOTP), since it boots Linux, I assume it should also handle FreeBSD. Comments and suggestions welcome. _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list [email protected] https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
