Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 11:09:48 -0500 (EST) From: Mark Mayo <mark@quickweb.com> To: Peter da Silva <peter@taronga.com> Cc: Paul Richards <p.richards@elsevier.co.uk>, hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Alpha Based Machines (Was: Re: IBM 57SLC) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.94.961128105854.14643A-100000@vinyl.quickweb.com> In-Reply-To: <199611281357.HAA21153@bonkers.taronga.com>
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On Thu, 28 Nov 1996, Peter da Silva wrote: > > How many of us now have Alphas? I bought 2 multia's last month one of > > which has NT on it and one has Linux. A FreeBSD Alpha port might now > > have enough bodies around to make a good go of it. > > I think that if you want to work on BSD on the Alpha you'd probably be better > off working with the NetBSD or OpenBSD folks, who already have ports... > > I think that FreeBSD is clearly the easiest and most accessible BSD port out > there, and keeping all the FreeBSD effort behind the one arrow is reasonable, > isn't it? After all, we already have two teams working on the "support all > platforms" front. > > Those Multias are damn cute, but I'm afraid that they're a one-shot thing. I > can't seem to convince any of the DEC people I talk to that a REAL PC-priced > Alpha box is an economic necessity if they're going to survive long-term. > Not necessarily - have you looked at their Celebris line of "personal workstations" ?? They're still a little pricey, but not too bad considering you can swap out the standard PPro for an Alpha daughtercard. I'm running one right now (got it at cost) and it's a decent PC / workstation. I don't think they're racing for PC priced Alpha's because they're waiting for a 64-bit NT. If you look at pretty much everything DEC has been doing lately, it can be summarized as sucking up to Microsoft... They are betting on NT in a big way, and they want to be the first platform that a 64-bit NT runs on. Internal rumors say the deal was roughly "We'll give you clusters for NT, you make NT run 64-bit on our Alpha". With the PPro really getting up there in performance (and price), the Alpha may finally have a competitor - which I think is good cause it will attract attention in the business world. The Alpha has the advantage (real or not) of being 64-bit. If they can convince Mickeysoft to make a 64-bit NT, they're going to have a foot hold on the high-end NT marketplace. They could actually win - and we might get cheap Alphas! Nevertheless, reasonably priced Alpha's in the meantime would be nice! I haven't tried the Linux Alpha combo yet - is it any good?? I run DEC Unix on a few workstations at the lab I work at, and it's excellent, but quite pricey... BTW - DEC's new policy is that EVERY piece of Alpha hardware they produce will run NT as well as DEC Unix. -Mark --------------------------------------------------- | Mark Mayo mark@quickweb.com | | RingZero Comp. vinyl.quickweb.com/mark | --------------------------------------------------- "To iterate is human, to recurse divine." - L. Peter Deutsch
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