Entropy Reducers Amalgamated

I think this time it's the eMachines machine I purchased.

After

• getting an el-cheapo RealTek-based ethernet card (and massively overpaying for it at a storefront, but I needed it right now) since neither CentOS nor FBSD could recognize the on-board controller, for reasons unbeknownst to me, and
• removing the modem, which I didn't need anyway,

FreeBSD 6.1 installed without a hitch (although I have not yet RAIDed my two disks. Did I mention how bad an idea it is to put two disks on the same PATA channel in a RAID pair? I evidently have not learned my own lesson yet.). I now have asterisk up and running on the machine, and my one FXO port is working just dandy (after going out and buying a $10 power-cable splitter, since the provided power cables in the machine were not long enough to reach the bottom PCI slot).

I haven't re-tried CentOS, but I am pretty sure that one of the half-dozen unrecorded changes I made did the trick.

Now, as for getting my Sipura SPA-921 phone to work correctly with Asterisk, that's for another entry...