Constantine Karbaliotis wrote:
> Hello; I am just getting my feet wet with NetBSD/mac68k; I have just
> installed it on an SE/30, and am planning to use it as a print server. I
> am currently running a couple of 68k Mac's with Debian Linux, so BSD is
> an interesting experience for me. I was wondering -- unlike macLinux,
> there is sound support for BSD, but how far does that go?

currently available sound support is limited to a simple beep on the
II-series '030-based mac's.  any mac with EASC or Singer hardware isn't
currently supported.  this may change in the semi-near future (although
not for the upcoming 1.5 release).  ironically, it is easier to get more
than simple beeps from the currently unsupported EASC hardware than it is
from the "supported" ASC hardware.

> Is it possible
> to run mp3 or more recent versions of RealAudio on a 68k Mac running
> NetBSD?

nope.  i doubt that there is a version of realaudio even compiled for
netbsd/m68k, although i guess i could be wrong.  as for mp3's, i kinda
doubt that an m68k has enough processing power to handle decompressing the
data, but i could be wrong here, too.  assuming that weren't an issue,
then it just remains to get /dev/audio working on as many macs as
possible...

> I think I am likely expecting too much, since you can't run mp3 or any
> versions of RealAudio later than 3 on these boxes under the MacOS -- but
> hey, it's a real OS, like the Linux crowd says. Also, is anyone running
> a browser (other than Lynx)? I would expect that on 68030 machines,
> running X is uncomfortably slow.

with enough memory, X runs just fine.  i think i've got 96MB on my IIci
and it runs just fine ;-)  startup is a little slow.  it's quite tolerable
on my Q700 with 40MB, too.  i usually run an old copy of mozilla when i
need a web browser.  it's a bit slow, but usable.

> I have a couple of IIsi's I would like
> to turn into music appliances on my network (hooked up to stereos). I
> would appreciate any feedback.

unfortunately, it's not too likely that we'll reach that level of audio
support anytime soon.  you might come up with some kind of macos-based
solution, tho.

-colin