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Date:      Wed, 16 Feb 2000 14:34:52 -0800 (PST)
From:      Dirk Kleinhesselink <dkleinh@phy.ucsf.EDU>
To:        Andrew Gallatin <gallatin@cs.duke.edu>
Cc:        Freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Help installing FreeBSD 4.0 on AlphaStation 200
Message-ID:  <Pine.OSF.3.95.1000216135319.2134A-100000@amadeus.ucsf.edu>
In-Reply-To: <14507.6310.52769.784517@grasshopper.cs.duke.edu>

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On Wed, 16 Feb 2000, Andrew Gallatin wrote:

> 
> Dirk Kleinhesselink writes:
>  > I'm confused, because FreeBSD won't boot from the ARC/AlphaBIOS and so the
>  > only machines one can use for it are "real DEC/Compaq" machines -- I
> 
> Specifically, what hardware are you talking about?
> 
> It might not be as bad as you think.  You can run SRM on the PC164
> series of machines, as well as on the a series of Miatas (eg,
> DPW433a).  The only machines which are really locked into
> AlphaBios/arc are the NT-only DEC branded machines like the Alpha XL
> (233, 266, 300, 366, 433).
I know -- I've got an Enorex PC164 366 at home that I bought from them
with a cirrus 5446 PCI video card, IDE cdrom, IDE disk.  It came with NT
and I added a 2nd disk and installed RedHat Linux 4.2/5.1/5.2 on it.  At
some point I wanted to run *BSD on it and so I down loaded SRM console
from Compaq/DEC web site and flashed that in -- however as my system was
not SCSI, this caused some big problems.  The PC164 will only show one of
the two IDE controllers in with the SRM console.  I bought a Tekram
DC-390F (Symbios 53C875 based) controller, SCSI disk and SCSI cdrom for
this and SRM would see these devices.  I had to replace the Cirrus video
card with a Diamond Stealth (S3) based card for Linux.  This situation
worked, but recently I got the Non-commercial copy of Tru64 5.0 and
OpenVMS 7.2, which I thought I'd try and run.  Tru64 would actually work
with my PC164 system with the Tekram controller and the S3 video card,
although it would only work with 16 colors and it complained that the SCSI
controller was an unsupported 53C875 based card (i.e. it's not
IntraServer, who make, I guess, the only official 53C87x based SCSI cards
for Digipac products).  I had no network with my 3com 905B controller.  I
administer a bunch of Alpha machines running DU and I got some parts to
take home:  TGA video card and Digital Ethernet card.  Tru64 is happier
and I have networking, but I cannot run OpenVMS with that -- OpenVMS
fails with a message from IntraServer about an incorrect ROM for the PKA0%
device -- my SCSI controller, obviously and it halts.  Now, the TGA card
I took home is actually a TGA2 card and even RedHat 6.1 won't work with it
in X mode, although I can install it as a text console.  The
AlphaStation 200 here at work runs RedHat 6.1 just find with the plain old
TGA card in it.  I think I have an Elsa GLoria Synergy card and maybe that
will work with FreeBSD.  I'll try it.

One question -- does anyone know about a SCSI controller that will work
with OpenVMS besides the IntraServer cards ?  The AlphaStation has an
integrated Qlogic controller -- are there separate Qlogic controller
cards?  

Thanks,
Dirk

> 
>  > would've figured that the DEC/Compaq machines that ran UNIX (or
>  > OpenVMS) would run FreeBSD, but I guess this isn't the case.  Are there
>  > any video cards supported by Digital UNIX/Tru64/OpenVMS that will
>  > work with FreeBSD ? 
> 
> Off the top of my head, I would imagine that the Elsa Gloria Synergy
> should work just fine, as it is a 3D-labs Permedia2 based card.  The
> S3-trio64 and the Mach64 cards which shipped in AlphaStations should
> also work.  I had a Mach64 going in an AlphaStation200 about a year
> ago.

I think I have an Elsa Gloria card -- we have an XP-1000 here that I
installed a 40D10 powerstorm card in -- the TGA2 card I have at home came
from this machine.  Along with the documentation for the XP-1000, I found
another card in a sealed antistatic bag that has an ELSA sticker on it.
All the documentation I found with all the cards was for NT, even though
the machine was purchased with DU... Go figure.  Anyway I'll try the ELSA
card I found in my PC164 at home.

> 
> Drew
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Andrew Gallatin, Sr Systems Programmer	http://www.cs.duke.edu/~gallatin
> Duke University				Email: gallatin@cs.duke.edu
> Department of Computer Science		Phone: (919) 660-6590
> 



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