Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 16:51:57 +0000 (GMT) From: Doug Rabson <dfr@nlsystems.com> To: Simon Shapiro <shimon@simon-shapiro.org> Cc: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG, Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> Subject: Re: Installing Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.01.9811011648250.387-100000@herring.nlsystems.com> In-Reply-To: <XFMail.981101122814.shimon@simon-shapiro.org>
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On Sun, 1 Nov 1998, Simon Shapiro wrote: > > Doug Rabson, On 01-Nov-98 you wrote: > > ... > > > AlphaBIOS supports using the SCSI bios for booting from adapters which > > it > > doesn't have built-in drivers for. Not that it helps much in this case. > > You might need another supported SCSI controller to boot from :-(. > > I am booting (for now) from the card that came with the machine (BusLogic?). > Can you wlaborate on ``not much help'' ? > The DPT runs its own firmware in ints own CPU (68040 on the 4th generation > cards and i960 on the 5th generation (i2o etc.). The BIOS is used for > booting and i/o for the firmware on both. I belive I can obtain an Alpha > BIOS. What should I ask for exactly? It isn't much help because we don't yet support booting from Alpha systems which have the AlphaBIOS firmware (as opposed to the SRM firmware). The AlphaBIOS firmware uses an x86 emulator to run the scsi and vga bios on all the cards which it finds and can therefore boot from anything which has an x86 bios which supports booting. The problem is that the SRM firmware (which is what we currently use) can only boot from scsi hardware for which it has a built-in driver. As far as I know, that list is limited to isp, ncr and possibly ahc hardware. -- Doug Rabson Mail: dfr@nlsystems.com Nonlinear Systems Ltd. Phone: +44 181 951 1891 Fax: +44 181 381 1039 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message
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