Date: Wed, 07 May 1997 05:15:10 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> To: "David S. Miller" <davem@jenolan.rutgers.edu> Cc: hsu@FreeBSD.ORG, jkh@hub.freebsd.org, hackers@hub.freebsd.org Subject: Re: Alpha questions... Message-ID: <8959.863007310@time.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 07 May 1997 08:06:06 EDT." <199705071206.IAA05102@jenolan.caipgeneral>
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> Care to elaborate? I'm very curious as to what the problems would be > if you used the OSF palcode... Well, the politics are too much to go into here (I'd have to explain the various byzantine issues involved between the various Digital BUs who own different and distinct pieces of the ALPHA pie, and my fingers just aren't up for that anyway :) but I can say two things unequivocably: 1. The OSF palcode costs money, nor will you see updates for it on the various FTP sites for that reason. The CC associated with this product wants to make its money back whereas the ARC code was done in cooperation with Microsoft and there are no such issues surrounding it. 2. The OSF palcode supports an absolutely miserable array of hardware, in fact just using the word "array" is to over-glorify it. Call any Digital hardware dealer (like Aspen Systems) and ask them about the supported hardware configurations when the system runs ARC and when the system runs OSF palcode (AKA SRM). What you can't boot from you can't support, even if there are appropriate drivers in the kernel just waiting to be used. 3. The manager of the BU who owns the SRM console has said that he'll support free software users of it over his dead body. This is an openly hostile relationship and we just plain don't need it. Jordan
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