Effort required vs. demand. The time that would be required to make SPARC work in our build system isn't worth it, the time would be better spent elsewhere (unless someone is willing to fund the development, and there's so much work in it that it's likely anyone who has a pile of SPARC boxes laying around would trash them before spending the kind of cash it would take to spend a considerable amount of time adding support). The only reason MIPS was added is Ubiquiti funded that development. Patches welcome of course (i.e. if you want to do the work, have at).

Talking to myself here… The problem was solved by scrapping the idea to have two network cards in that poor Thinkpad :-) A switch Procurve 1810-24G av VLAN was the answer to all my needs. For the curious: Defined two VLAN: [LAN] VLAN10 port: 1-22 Untagged, 23 excluded, 24 Tagged [WAN] VLAN20 port: 23 untagged, 24 Tagged Hardware: Netgear CG3200 Cable Modem WAN-line (gigabit, NAT=off) into port 23 (100/10Mbit; Service provider is ComHem, Sweden, Stockholm) Thinkpad T43 (gigabit internal nic, bge0) into port 24 fpSense NIC-config; VLAN: [LAN] VLAN10; vlan0 [WAN] VLAN20; vlan1 Latest speed test with above config gives me: ~102 Mbit downstream and ~11 Mbit upstream. Conclusion of above is as I see it that you shouldn't bother with multiple NICs in a PC. Go for one good gigabit NIC and leave the rest to the switch! Brgs, iorx

If you aren't having problems, leave it enabled.

I'm pretty sure if you search you'll find a few threads about that board ;)

Whether there's an FSB or not shouldn't be exposed to the OS. It should work fine, provided the I/O controller in the chipset is supported, that's what I'd be more concerned about. The box wouldn't be too useful if you can't use any disks or USB ports :P

Thank you for your advice, I will try that method sortly, hope that it will work fine.

good to hear!

I try to exectute this command: sysctl -w hw.acpi.handle_reboot=1 but… the pfsense reponse: sysctl: unknown oid 'hw.acpi.handle_reboot I take the same problem with Alix Board Mod: alix3d2...and still not get the machine restarted. Please... help me.... :'( I create the post wih this problem: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,19951.0.html

Could be a hardware problem. You can put the NIC in another machine, or test another NIC in your machine (you can also try other type of NIC's, to test the mainboard on errors). When you've got only one NIC, maybe your reseller or Supermicro/Intel can help you with this problem. Good luck!

I've tried to manually set media type with the same negative result. Yesterday I've tried with FreeBSD 8.0 RC3, and it works fine… So, the problem is related to 7 FreeBSD version. Unfortunately, current pfSense release is also based on 7.2 .. And alpha release is still alpha...

I'm a definite n00b when discussing pfsense, so take this for what it's worth.  From my previous experience with Alix boards, I am not sure that they will have the power to run Snort + HAVP well.  Snort, from what I have heard, would require a bit more power to be truly effective.

Hey James, You haven't said anything about the throughput and the amount of money you're willing to spend. A standard PC with mATX or M ITX board, Intel E7200 and 80+ power supply uses only about 35W (idle). How much power does you configuration pull on energy? Maybe it differences about 10W? On yearly base 10W would save you around € 15,- on energy costs (in the Netherlands, based on 330 days/24 hours in a year). Throughput, especially with Intel NIC's, is a lot better compared to the VIA board. You can also use Realtek 3911D NIC's. Lower costs, but also (a lot) less throughput and less stability. I don't know anything about running this Jetway mainboard with Pfsense, but reading the forum can tell you that Realtek isn't exacly a favourite…

Not supported.

Yes they are :)

@karlzon: I do know dual and quad have more cores than one, but they still count as one single CPU. But, do you mean that SMP kernel (option two) is for one (1) dualcore CPU to? I though it only mattered if there where more CPU units in one system. Example; dual (2) XEON CPU's in a server. SMP is for multiple cores or multiple physical processors. It can also be used on a system with only one processor without any real negative effects from what I understand.

@LedPighp: @jasonlitka: I've used that board in the past but I've replaced just about all of them with better kit. What hardware did you use to replace your Jetway? How long have the replacements been up and running? I replaced the JetWay boxes with the FW-7872 from Lanner (packing a Celeron M 440 & 4GB of RAM).  The systems have been running since July with no issues.  They've been rebooted a few times each for pfSense updates but otherwise have run solid.

Sounds like there may be some other issues with the package in general then.