im thinking about trying out bsd, but im worried about my hardware being supported for the most part there should be no problem but it took me a long time and a lot of work to get my soundblaster extigy to work well under linux (now running the development kernel to do it) and i want to know does anyone here know if the bsd kernel will support it or a link to somewhere where i can get information about it

--thanks

while im wondering about hardware compatibility i might as well throw the rest up

p4 1.7ghz
256mb 800mhz rdram
dimension 8200 mobo
geforce2 mx400
buslink 52x24x52 cdr
nec 24x16x32 cdr
davicom etherlink
soundblaster extigy

Which variant of BSD were you planning on running? I guess a good start would be to start checking the HCLs at the websites for the major BSD distributions.

most likely freebsd

I'd say that list looks pretty good, I've installed FBSD 5 on a lot more complex computers. If you go to www.freebsd.org , they have a hardware listing under each version listed on the right side. As for the GForce, probably going to have to download newest drivers from NVidia.

i have the same display adapter. i had no problems installing freeBSD-Current. well, almost none. you want the nv driver (provided in the GENERIC kernel) for the nvidia mx400. i had some problems configuring X during the install process, but i think the problem was with my monitor, not the display adapter. you should be ok as long as you know your horizontal and vertical sync rates.