> I'm using NetBSD on an Athlon based machine and have
> no problem with compatibility at all. Besides, price,
> performance, and stability - Athlon surpasses Pentium
> III/4 in almost every respect. 

I agree with everything but the "stability".  The Athlon board I have
(Asus a7v) sucks for stability.  There are many things that I can do
to crash and hang it.  It seems that half of the problem is that Asus
doesn't give one a full and complete description of the chips and
their addresses (unlike every Intel-motherboard that I have).  If AMD
truly wants to succeed they have to exert some pressure on their
cohorts to get with the program.  AMD is very dependent on both their
outside chip-makers and the motherboard-makers to make them look good.
(Otherwise AMD is going to be known as "that company that provides the
CPU's for those fast and unreliable x86 computers.")

The most recent -current kernels (after Dec 26) don't even finish
booting my Athlon.  They hang at the "biomask xxxx netmask xxxx
ttymask xxxx" line.  Those same "problem" kernels boot just fine on
all the Intel motherboards I have.

-wolfgang
-- 
       Wolfgang Rupprecht <wolfgang+gnus@dailyplanet.wsrcc.com>
		    http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/
Coming soon: GPS mapping tools for Open Systems. http://www.gnomad-mapping.com/