Right but if you buy your own motherboard, then you have to put it together yourself. A lot of people aren't up to that. And if you buy a machine or even have one built for you in a shop, their mobos might not have an exposed serial port or even the header block. The shop is probably buying the cheapest mobos they can and they might not have a serial port header block. Personally, I don't buy a server class mobo when I build. I buy a workstation mobo with the header block and use an adapter to bring it out to the case. It doesn't cost any extra to do that any more because I just salvage the adapter from an old machine when I build a new one. Another thing I'd recommend is going to a used computer store and buying a slightly older high-end machine. The Dell workstations we buy for the University of Wisconsin all still come with serial ports exposed on the back. You can get a dual-core machine at the University's used computer store for $100 and it'll run linux/orca just fine. Before I started shopping at the University's used computer store, I used to shop at this place where I'd leave them a note with specifications on the machine I wanted and they'd call me when a machine matching my specs came in. They were always happy to do that. On 05/16/13 04:17, Tony Baechler wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA256 > > Well, I guess I'm just lucky. I found a motherboard with a serial port > right off the bat on Amazon last August. I just searched for server > motherboard with serial port and it came right up. I didn't look at any > pdf files. Sure enough, it has a normal, regular serial port which worked > fine when I did my Debian install. I really don't get why there seems to > be so much trouble finding such a thing. As I said, maybe I'm just lucky. > I've found that the dedicated computer sites are useless. I had much > better luck with Amazon. I wouldn't bother with the shops, but I'm lazy. > > On 5/15/2013 6:38 PM, Mitchell D. Lynn wrote: >> The shops I visited had systems built with those boards, and we checked >> CMOS to see if they were listed there as well as in manuals. They also >> looked at the board, and nothing indicated there were serial >> connections at all. It's something I will keep in mind in the future. >> Usually buy my stuff online; looks like I will again have to face those >> odious PDF files. > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (MingW32) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ > > iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJRlKRBAAoJEPrAuJWnLe0yt6UP/0PaKocA8VF2AvGlv3ZQUn7W > qeZSDTrB6x3L4mAA3NeB4+7xLR+nuM3UJRk0cC6qvLk29G430lJ8Nw1K3NPyEMvW > /4Gnd8jslsmKHPTnAGWCdBFMqKJt4DINXbxcRKUlWhtjseukJFIqJ5BK9ID2ojJL > suG8FYxY8mYeIl7GemolZDQOVgt/4Nb3/pd+gvKp8hyPxH/qOCXA7/R5BQKQXINw > iyqyHM2PgHTk5/fmcykYV0QaIDtJTSrSRUXrDptnwGudssejrA3/09wjbVbCOWdP > 8RghwN5f/7QoBVT8AG4sMvWgG0BJ/kEf1Q3uK7gW8VawyAdgeqLxmcF9+Epd3Kha > ku+sX73iAPbGdMME3Is97d/8c0SLa64vXON5GEaj1r3aVliTavlk1pjAekF7czum > rhXPD06VVDZcG7pI2fA0irU5UDqXBAUm0Yh2pT4P+/8JE2uZdiIOozdWG8bJyrfp > wRKLmQdk3E72XAUUDMVFS8EAZgRCNtY2EtHNAruJflTc3diF2DeWRRFn3IqL/1Kt > 4ZflgMELNsJIufWUdoAbb9clYiE/VZbZ6RBuvbbjph+Ys4SUDdgKqrWQectdeElX > DiClVAQR34bNyaphFplaq3rQDvHgZLYlQHkumvkIF76hNTW53bATanVU93mCPSiP > Q9xq98re0F5dF/0dfBkQ > =OdzS > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at linux-speakup.org > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup > -- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim at math.wisc.edu
