安装FreeBSD之前首先要了解FreeBSD是否支持你所拥有的硬件，一般来讲FreeBSD对
硬件的支持还是很好的，但也需要在安装前仔细阅读帮助文件，看一看是否有不支持的硬件，以免给你带来不必要的麻烦。在安装软件中文件HARDWARE.TXT中详细介绍了FreeBSD支持的硬件。

下面是FreeBSD 3.0-Release对硬件的支持情况：

FreeBSD currently runs on a wide variety of ISA, VLB, EISA and PCI bus
based PC's, ranging from 386sx to Pentium class machines (though the 386sx
is not recommended).Support for generic IDE or ESDI driveconfigurations,
various SCSI controller, network and serial cards is also provided.

What follows is a list of all peripherals currently known to work
withFreeBSD.Other configurations may also work, we have simply not as
yet received confirmation of this.

1.Disk Controllers
--------------------
WD1003 (any generic MFM/RLL)
WD1007 (any generic IDE/ESDI)
IDE
ATA
Adaptec 1535 ISA SCSI controllers
Adaptec 154x series ISA SCSI controllers
Adaptec 174x series EISA SCSI controller in standard and enhanced mode.
Adaptec 274X/284X/2940/3940 (Narrow/Wide/Twin) series ISA/EISA/PCI SCSI
controllers.
Adaptec AIC7850/AIC7895 on-board SCSI controllers.

Support for the following controllers is rather weak:

Adaptec 1510 series ISA SCSI controllers (not for bootable devices)
Adaptec 152x series ISA SCSI controllers
Adaptec AIC-6260 and AIC-6360 based boards, which includes the AHA-152x
and SoundBlaster SCSI cards.

** Note: You cannot boot from the SoundBlaster cards as they have no
on-board BIOS, such being necessary for mapping the boot device into the
system BIOS I/O vectors.They're perfectly usable for external
tapes,CDROMs, etc, however.The same goes for any other AIC-6x60 based
card without a boot ROM.Some systems DO have a boot ROM, which is
generally indicated by some sort of message when the system is first
powered up or reset, and in such cases you *will* also be able to boot
from them.

Check your system/board documentation for more details.

AdvanSys (Advanced Systems) ABP510/542/5150 ISA and ABP5140/5142 ISA PnP
cards, ABP842/852 VLB cards, and
ABP920/930/930U/930UA/950/960/960U/970/970U PCI cards.

** Note:The ADP510/5140/5150 boards were shipped by HP with the 4020i
CD-R drive but with NO BIOS, so these models cannot control boot devices
though they can be used for any secondary SCSI device.Also note that the
ABP5140/5142 boards were rebadged by SIIG as the "SpeedMaster i540/i542"

Buslogic 545S & 545c
Buslogic 445S/445c VLB SCSI controller
Buslogic 742A, 747S, 747c EISA SCSI controller.
Buslogic 946c PCI SCSI controller
Buslogic 956c PCI SCSI controller
SymBios (formerly NCR) 53C810, 53C825, 53c860 and 53c875 PCI SCSI

controllers:

ASUS SC-200
Data Technology DTC3130 (all variants)
NCR cards (all)
Symbios cards (all)
Tekram DC390W, 390U and 390F
Tyan S1365

Tekram DC390 and DC390T controllers (maybe other cards based on the AMD
53c974 as well).
NCR5380/NCR53400 ("ProAudio Spectrum") SCSI controller.
DTC 3290 EISA SCSI controller in 1542 emulation mode.
UltraStor 14F, 24F and 34F SCSI controllers.
Seagate ST01/02 SCSI controllers.

Future Domain 8xx/950 series SCSI controllers.

WD7000 SCSI controller.

With all supported SCSI controllers, full support is provided for SCSI-I &
SCSI-II peripherals, including Disks, tape drives (including DAT and 8mm
Exabyte) and CD ROM drives.

The following CD-ROM type systems are supported at this time:

(cd)SCSI interface (also includes ProAudio Spectrum and SoundBlaster
SCSI)
(mcd) Mitsumi proprietary interface (all models, driver is rather stale)

(matcd) Matsushita/Panasonic (Creative SoundBlaster) proprietary interface
(562/563 models)
(scd) Sony proprietary interface (all models)
(wcd) ATAPI IDE interface.


2.Network cards
-----------------

Allied-Telesis AT1700 and RE2000 cards
AMD PCnet/PCI (79c970 & 53c974 or 79c974)
SMC Elite 16 WD8013 ethernet interface, and most other WD8003E,
WD8003EBT, WD8003W, WD8013W, WD8003S, WD8003SBT and WD8013EBT based
clones.SMC Elite Ultra is also supported.

Texas Instruments ThunderLAN PCI NICs, including the following:

Compaq Netelligent 10, 10/100, 10/100 Proliant, 10/100 Dual-Port
Compaq Netelligent 10/100 TX Embedded UTP, 10 T PCI UTP/Coax, 10/100 TX
UTP
Compaq NetFlex 3P, 3P Integrated, 3P w/ BNC
Olicom OC-2135/2138, OC-2325, OC-2326 10/100 TX UTP

DEC EtherWORKS III NICs (DE203, DE204, and DE205)
DEC EtherWORKS II NICs (DE200, DE201, DE202, and DE422)
DEC DC21040, DC21041, or DC21140 based NICs (SMC Etherpower 8432T, DE245,
etc)
DEC FDDI (DEFPA/DEFEA) NICs
Efficient ENI-155p ATM PCI
FORE PCA-200E ATM PCI
Fujitsu MB86960A/MB86965A
HP PC Lan+ cards (model numbers: 27247B and 27252A).
Intel EtherExpress (not recommended due to driver instability)
Intel EtherExpress Pro/10
Intel EtherExpress Pro/100B PCI Fast Ethernet
Isolan AT 4141-0 (16 bit)
Isolink 4110 (8 bit)
Novell NE1000, NE2000, and NE2100 ethernet interface.
3Com 3C501 cards
3Com 3C503 Etherlink II
3Com 3c505 Etherlink/+
3Com 3C507 Etherlink 16/TP
3Com 3C509, 3C579, 3C589 (PCMCIA), 3C590/592/595/900/905/905B PCI and EISA

(Fast) Etherlink III / (Fast) Etherlink XL
Toshiba ethernet cards
PCMCIA ethernet cards from IBM and National Semiconductor are also
supported.


Note that NO token ring cards are supported at this time as we're still
waiting for someone to donate a driver for one of them.Anytakers?

3.Misc
--------

AST 4 port serial card using shared IRQ.
ARNET 8 port serial card using shared IRQ.
ARNET (now Digiboard) Sync 570/i high-speed serial.
Boca BB1004 4-Port serial card (Modems NOT supported)
Boca IOAT66 6-Port serial card (Modems supported)
Boca BB1008 8-Port serial card (Modems NOT supported)
Boca BB2016 16-Port serial card (Modems supported)
Cyclades Cyclom-y Serial Board.
STB 4 port card using shared IRQ.
SDL Communications Riscom/8 Serial Board.
SDL Communications RISCom/N2 and N2pci high-speed sync serial boards.
Specialix SI/XIO/SX multiport serial cards, with both the older
SIHOST2.x and the new "enhanced" (transputer based, aka JET) host cards.
ISA, EISA and PCI are supported.
Stallion multiport serial boards: EasyIO, EasyConnection 8/32 &
8/64,ONboard 4/16 and Brumby.
Adlib, SoundBlaster, SoundBlaster Pro, ProAudioSpectrum, Gravis UltraSound
and Roland MPU-401 sound cards.
Connectix QuickCam
Matrox Meteor Video frame grabber
Creative Labs Video Spigot frame grabber
Cortex1 frame grabber
Various Frame grabbers based on Brooktree Bt848 chip.
HP4020, HP6020, Philips CDD2000/CDD2660 and Plasmon CD-R drives.

Bus mice

PS/2 mice
Standard PC Joystick
X-10 power controllers
GPIB and Transputer drivers.
Genius and Mustek hand scanners.
Floppy tape drives (some rather old models only, driver rather stale)

FreeBSD currently does NOT support IBM's microchannel (MCA) bus.