Supported PC Hardware

Tue Apr 9 00:17:44 PDT 2002, rsc
This page lists hardware known to work with Plan 9. Most hardware is listed by chipset: you may need to know what chipset your particular cards use.

FLOPPY DISKS

Plan 9 supports generic floppy drives, although some people have had trouble accessing them. If you have trouble accessing your 3.5" floppy drive and also have a 5.25" floppy drive, try disabling the latter in the BIOS.

USB floppy drives are not supported.

IDE/ATAPI DISKS

Plan 9 supports almost all motherboard IDE/ATAPI controllers, but DMA transfers are only used on these recognized chipsets (chipsets not listed here will simply run slower; you can try turning on DMA by editing /sys/src/9/pc/sdata.c).

SCSI

CARDBUS AND PCMCIA CONTROLLERS

The following cardbus controllers are supported:

If the cardbus chipset is not supported, Plan 9 falls back to the PCMCIA driver, which handles the Intel i82365, Cirrus Logic CL-PD6710, Cirrus Logic CL-PD6720, Vadem VG-46x, and compatibles. This covers most laptops.

ETHERNET

These cards are supported but not as well used:

VGA CARDS AND CHIPSETS

For VGA cards more than any other hardware, it is more precise to describe the chips we support rather than the cards they are based on, since the cards are more ephemeral than the chip sets. Beware: different revisions of a card may use different chip sets.

Linux users can look at their X server configuration to see which chip set they are using. Windows users can look at ``control panel'' -> ``display settings'' -> ``display type'' to find out.

Plan 9 uses some basic accelerator for features such as filling and scrolling rectangles. We use none of the 3D features on the cards we support.

Chipsets used at Bell Labs:

Chipsets supported in previous releases but not tested in current system:

Cards used at Bell Labs:

Cards used elsewhere and tested with the release:

Cards supported in previous releases but not tested in current system:

AUDIO

Supported audio devices:

Supported but not as well used:

KEYBOARDS

Any PS/2 keyboard should work.

MICE

Plan 9 supports PS/2 and PS/2 Intellimouse mice as well as serial mice using the Logitech or Microsoft serial mouse protocols. There is preliminary support for the scroll wheel and extra buttons as on the Toshiba Protégé 3440CT.

Most laptops present their built-in pointing devices as PS/2 mice.

LAPTOPS

Laptops are often the hardest systems to get Plan 9 running on, because you can't choose the hardware piece by piece.

The following laptops are known to work in the current release:

The following laptops worked in previous releases and may work in the current one:

Tue Apr 9 00:04:25 PDT 2002, rsc
This page lists hardware known to work with Plan 9. Most hardware is listed by chipset: you may need to know what chipset your particular cards use.

FLOPPY DISKS

Plan 9 supports generic floppy drives, although some people have had trouble accessing them. If you have trouble accessing your 3.5" floppy drive and also have a 5.25" floppy drive, try disabling the latter in the BIOS.

IDE/ATAPI DISKS

Plan 9 supports almost all motherboard IDE/ATAPI controllers, but DMA transfers are only used on these recognized chipsets (chipsets not listed here will simply run slower; you can try turning on DMA by editing /sys/src/9/pc/sdata.c).

SCSI

CARDBUS AND PCMCIA CONTROLLERS

The following cardbus controllers are supported:

If the cardbus chipset is not supported, Plan 9 falls back to the PCMCIA driver, which handles the Intel i82365, Cirrus Logic CL-PD6710, Cirrus Logic CL-PD6720, Vadem VG-46x, and compatibles. This covers most laptops.

ETHERNET

These cards are supported but not as well used:

VGA CARDS AND CHIPSETS

Tue Apr 9 00:03:48 PDT 2002, rsc
This page lists hardware known to work with Plan 9. Most hardware is listed by chipset: you may need to know what chipset your particular cards use.

FLOPPY DISKS

Plan 9 supports generic floppy drives, although some people have had trouble accessing them. If you have trouble accessing your 3.5" floppy drive and also have a 5.25" floppy drive, try disabling the latter in the BIOS.

IDE/ATAPI DISKS

Plan 9 supports almost all motherboard IDE/ATAPI controllers, but DMA transfers are only used on these recognized chipsets (chipsets not listed here will simply run slower; you can try turning on DMA by editing /sys/src/9/pc/sdata.c).

SCSI

CARDBUS AND PCMCIA CONTROLLERS

The following cardbus controllers are supported:

If the cardbus chipset is not supported, Plan 9 falls back to the PCMCIA driver, which handles the Intel i82365, Cirrus Logic CL-PD6710, Cirrus Logic CL-PD6720, Vadem VG-46x, and compatibles. This covers most laptops.

ETHERNET

These cards are supported but not as well used:

Mon Apr 8 23:55:25 PDT 2002, rsc
This page lists hardware known to work with Plan 9. Most hardware is listed by chipset: you may need to know what chipset your particular cards use.

FLOPPY DISKS

Plan 9 supports generic floppy drives, although some people have had trouble accessing them. If you have trouble accessing your 3.5" floppy drive and also have a 5.25" floppy drive, try disabling the latter in the BIOS.

IDE/ATAPI DISKS

Plan 9 supports almost all motherboard IDE/ATAPI controllers, but DMA transfers are only used on these recognized chipsets (chipsets not listed here will simply run slower; you can try turning on DMA by editing /sys/src/9/pc/sdata.c).

SCSI

CARDBUS AND PCMCIA CONTROLLERS

The following cardbus controllers are supported:

If the cardbus chipset is not supported, Plan 9 falls back to the PCMCIA driver, which handles the Intel i82365, Cirrus Logic CL-PD6710, Cirrus Logic CL-PD6720, Vadem VG-46x, and compatibles. This covers most laptops.

ETHERNET

Last modified Mon Apr 8 23:55:25 PDT 2002 [ Current version | History | Create a new page ] About the server | Powered by Plan 9