From owner-freebsd-alpha Sun Nov 14 22:51:30 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Received: from laurasia.com.au (lauras.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.93.142]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7791714BDB for ; Sun, 14 Nov 1999 22:51:20 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mike@laurasia.com.au) Received: (from mike@localhost) by laurasia.com.au (8.9.1a/8.9.1) id OAA03239 for freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org; Mon, 15 Nov 1999 14:51:18 +0800 (WST) From: Michael Kennett Message-Id: <199911150651.OAA03239@laurasia.com.au> Subject: Alpha PC164SX firmware/booting questions To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 14:51:18 +0800 (WST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL32 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Hello All, I've been thinking for a couple of months of converting an Alpha/164SX box over to FreeBSD. I've been frightened off this for a couple of reasons: 1) Debian 2.1 is already running on the box (not well, but OK). 2) I'm not sure that the hardware is supported by the SRM console. - Adaptec 2940 SCSI controller. I've had a look at the NetBSD alpha pages (www.netbsd.org/Ports/alpha), as they seem to be the best resource around. I've also had a look at the Compaq/Digital firmware doco (ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/firmware/index.html). I'm looking for information on the hardware that is supported by the SRM firmware. Currently, the ARC (AlphaBIOS) firmware recognises the Adaptec controller, and I can boot from it. But, apparently the SRM console can't do this (can only boot from an NCR/Symbios 53c8XX, or possibly IDE -- or so I've read -- never found definitive doco on this). As yet, I've not found a digital document that gives a list of supported hardware for the SRM console. Where can I find it? Related to this question is the size of the IDE disks that are supported by SRM. I've read (on this list) that you can use an old 100Meg drive to boot, and then FreeBSD will install the drivers for the Adaptec etc... However, if I was to buy an IDE drive, it would be a `large' (several Gig) drive -- are these supported for booting (or is the Alpha architecture infected with all of the PeeCee limitations on large disks)? Regards, Mike Kennett (mike@laurasia.com.au) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message