Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 21:05:53 -0500 From: Thor Lancelot Simon <tls@rek.tjls.com> To: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: netbsd-alpha@netbsd.org Subject: Re: ARC/AlphaBIOS (164UX boards) .. was: Re: horrible hack / SRM console Message-ID: <19990122210553.A16988@rek.tjls.com> In-Reply-To: <19990121060919.A25024@cold.org>; from Brandon Gillespie on Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 06:09:19AM -0700 References: <19990121060919.A25024@cold.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Thu, Jan 21, 1999 at 06:09:19AM -0700, Brandon Gillespie wrote: > Andrew Gallatin <gallatin@cs.duke.edu> wrote: > > And this is going to become a much bigger issue once all the 164lx > > boards sell out, as vendors are claiming they will. Samsung's 164lx > > replacement, the 164ux, apparently works only with AlphaBios. From > > what I've read, DEC's new low-end 164RX board will lack SRM support as > > well. > > My company is engineering an alpha computer/sales division, for doing > online sales. I have been encouraged by the FreeBSD port effort, as I > much prefer FreeBSD to linux, but it looks as if we are going to be > using the UX board for our mainstay. Infact, we do not really have > much choice, if we buy from Samsung (aka Alpha Processors Inc/API). > They have the 164UX/BX available in the 2MB and 4MB, and they will > soon also have another board which uses daughter boards to provide > dual CPU capability--I believe it is 164UX based as well. Any other > board which they have produced in the past have reached the end of > their life, and they will NOT be producing any more. Some people may > still have a few stocked, but that is it. > > The problem is, of course, that these motherboards ONLY seem to > support the AlphaBIOS. I'm still digging trying to find the SRM, but > I cannot. On API's site they even list the firmware as simply being > AlphaBIOS, and the ONLY OSes they list as being able to run on it are > NT and Linux (note the lack of Digital Unix, *sigh*). > > Also, I'm just getting into this so I appologize if I offend anybody > ;) But why not join camps and try to fork MILO to work with FreeBSD, > but basing off the same code base it seems it'd be easier to keep up > to date for BOTH camps... However, I suspect this effort (ARC boot) > is further along than I realize, so I shall desist :) Well, from over here on the NetBSD side of the fence, I can report that it's damned near impossible to *get* complete MILO source. This doesn't surprise me, since according to the license on _my_ copy of the SRM PALcode that appears to be the version they started with, it'd be a violation to distribute it under GPL, and MILO is allegedly under GPL. Mmmmmmm, Linux. Has anyone actually got complete, buildable MILO source including the modified OSF/1 PALcode? This is pretty much a must for running BSD on an Alpha which hasn't got SRM, and it's one of the main reasons why NetBSD doesn't go on those boxes, despite running on almost every other piece of 32 or 64 bit hardware DEC has ever built. -- Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?" 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?19990122210553.A16988>