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Date:      Wed, 16 Feb 2000 23:08:16 +0100
From:      Wilko Bulte <wilko@yedi.iaf.nl>
To:        Dirk Kleinhesselink <dkleinh@phy.ucsf.EDU>
Cc:        freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Help installing FreeBSD 4.0 on AlphaStation 200
Message-ID:  <20000216230816.A4017@yedi.iaf.nl>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.3.95.1000216132649.2113A-100000@amadeus.ucsf.edu>; from dkleinh@phy.ucsf.EDU on Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 01:30:37PM -0800
References:  <20000216213419.B2716@yedi.iaf.nl> <Pine.OSF.3.95.1000216132649.2113A-100000@amadeus.ucsf.edu>

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On Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 01:30:37PM -0800, Dirk Kleinhesselink wrote:

> > > the official DEC/Compaq systems don't work with FreeBSD, given that
> > > XFree86 has support for TGA and the *other guys* (Linux/NetBSD) can handle
> > > them... 
> > 
> > I'm afraid this means that you will have to write TGA support code
> > yourself.  It probably boils down to people owning a TGA and having enough
> > time and willing to spend the time.

> I have no idea how to write a driver -- I'm an old FORTRAN coder.  I guess
> I'm confused, because FreeBSD won't boot from the ARC/AlphaBIOS and so the

Correct, only SRM consoles work. There are very good reasons for that, the
mailing list archives contain it all. ARC has PALcode too closely linked 
to what WinNT needs/wants/likes to be useful for Unix.

> only machines one can use for it are "real DEC/Compaq" machines -- I
> would've figured that the DEC/Compaq machines that ran UNIX (or
> OpenVMS) would run FreeBSD, but I guess this isn't the case.  Are there
> any video cards supported by Digital UNIX/Tru64/OpenVMS that will
> work with FreeBSD ? 

Yes, for example the Number9 cards (S3 based) that are in some of the Alpha
server machines. And the DEC S3 864 (IIRC) that is in my PWS433 (Miata) Alpha
also works. In general: the more exotic (from the PC standpoint) the cards
are the less likely they are to be widespread.

The problem is, I think, that things like the PowerStorm series
of graphics cards don't have programming docs available. And they are not
'mainstream'. Like it or not, the best chance for support has hardware that
is well-used in the Intel/PC world.



-- 
Wilko Bulte 			Arnhem, The Netherlands	  
WWW : http://www.tcja.nl  	The FreeBSD Project: http://www.freebsd.org


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