Baslinux mailing list

[Matrix Mole <matrixm AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004, Sindi Keesan wrote:

> We ran across one (dead) fast PII with only one ISA slot.  Is it true that
> some newer computers have no ISA slots? (Or serial ports, or floppy
> drives).  Are there PCI sound cards or modems that don't require Windows?

>From what I understand, yes, there are news motherboards being made that
don't ahve any ISA slots on them at all. As you noticed with the PII, they
were "doing away with" the ISA slots as far back as roughly '98-'99. As
early as two years ago the new released MBs had 1-2 ISA slots, but even
then they were shared ISA/PC slot. I don't remember the new architecture
that's coming out supposedly to replace the PCI slot, but it's not makeing
much headway I don't think.  I don't know about the Serial ports or floppy
drives. There are some computers that are designed without floppy drives
(iMac for one), these are usually e-machines, or small systems designed
for the "only" purpose of allowing the owner to access the internet and
nothing else. With the popularity of USB, it may be possible that systems
are starting to do away with serial ports, but I don't think they'll ever
disappear entirely (and only "good" computers will still have them). I
can't vouch for the PCI sound cards, as I've never setup a sound card in
Linux (and from what I've heard both here, and other places on the net,
that's very difficult thing to do).  The modems OTOH, I can answer. There
are some PCI modems that aren't winmodems. You have to read the details on
the box very carefully though to make sure. If it's a modem not bought at
a store, then odds are that it is a winmodem, but it's possible its not.
You'd have to do some net research on the modem model number and possibly
FCC-ID. Even winmodems can be made to work on linux nowdays though. A lot
of people have put together drivers for some that work in linux. It's not
been my experience to find a winmodem that has been ported to linux
though, but they do exist.

Hope that helps :)
-- 
Matrix Mole
matrixm AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org