Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sun, 29 Jul 2001 11:13:48 +0200
From:      Wilko Bulte <wkb@freebie.xs4all.nl>
To:        Donald Burr of Borg <dburr@borg-cube.com>
Cc:        FreeBSD Alpha Mailing List <freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Installing FreeBSD on an AlphaPC 164LX - Alpha newbie needs help
Message-ID:  <20010729111348.B1033@freebie.xs4all.nl>
In-Reply-To: <000f01c117d4$7099fc90$0700a8c0@collective.borgcube.com>; from dburr@borg-cube.com on Sat, Jul 28, 2001 at 07:16:13PM -0700
References:  <000f01c117d4$7099fc90$0700a8c0@collective.borgcube.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Sat, Jul 28, 2001 at 07:16:13PM -0700, Donald Burr of Borg wrote:

> While cleaning out an equipment room at work, I found a fun new toy to play
> with: an Aspen Systems Durango AlphaPC 164LX system.  (DEC 21164, 533 MHz)

Nice..

> It's got NT installed on it right now.  This is totally unacceptable -- I'd

Yes, very unacceptable.

> * This machine currently has the AlphaBIOS firmware on it (is this the same
> as ARC?)  I understand that I will need SRM in order to boot/install

ARC != AlphaBIOS. AlphaBIOS came later into the game. But never mind, you
need SRM anyway, neither ARC or AlphaBIOS are usable with *BSD.

> FreeBSD.  I am kind of leery of flashing my BIOS, and I would like to be
> able to go back to AlphaBIOS if I ever want to run NT on this machine.
> (This machine came from a 3-D shop, and thus the NT drive has a whole bunch
> of nifty 3-D modeling, animation, etc. software on it, which I may want to
> play with at some point down the line.)
> 
> The FreeBSD/alpha INSTALL.TXT file mentions:
>     In some cases, it is possible to switch between AlphaBIOS (or ARC)
> firmware and SRM.
> 
> Is this possible with my hardware?  If so, how do I set it up?

Depends on if the machine has enough flashrom to hold both. I suggest
digging thru the AlphaBIOS menus if you can find an option to select
Unix or VMS. That is what my Miatas have. If it has, select Unix and
powercycle. That should give you the SRM.

> If not, then I guess I will have to flash to an SRM image.  If I do this, is
> it possible to flash back to AlphaBIOS if I should ever desire to?  Or is it
> possible to somehow boot WinNT from within SRM?

No, NT needs Abios.

> * It currently has a Diamond Fire GL 1000 Pro video card in it.  This card,
> I believe, uses the 3DLabs GLINT chipset.  How well is this supported by
> XFree86?  Whieh version should I use (3.x or 4.x?)

ENOCLUE, I run my alphas headless.

> * This machine has an "DECchip 21140" 10/100 ethernet controller on it.  I
> believe it should work with the FreeBSD "dc" driver? (or was that the "de"
> driver?)

Yes, that card is ok. You will see which driver in GENERIC catches it ;-)

> * Windows NT has this nifty little software called "FX!32" that lets you run
> Windows NT/x86 binaries on the Alpha.  I *believe* that there is a similar
> piece of software available for Linux/alpha.  What about FreeBSD?  NetBSD?

Not that I know of in the BSD world. Linux could be.

> Anyway, thanks in advance for whatever advise you can offer, and please
> excuse these questions from an Alpha newbie.  Thanks all!

No problem. I like to know the outcome of the AlphaBIOS/SRM thingy, so
that I can update my docs accordingly.

W/
-- 
|   / o / /  _   	Arnhem, The Netherlands    	email: wilko@FreeBSD.org
|/|/ / / /( (_) Bulte	

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20010729111348.B1033>