Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 20:26:20 -0400 (EDT) From: "Brandon D. Valentine" <bandix@looksharp.net> To: Wilko Bulte <wkb@freebie.demon.nl> Cc: Andrew Gallatin <gallatin@cs.duke.edu>, freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Alpha XL 300 Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0010182016001.10190-100000@turtle.looksharp.net> In-Reply-To: <20001018192534.C1832@freebie.demon.nl>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, Wilko Bulte wrote: >On Wed, Oct 18, 2000 at 08:55:37AM -0400, Andrew Gallatin wrote: >> >> Brandon D. Valentine writes: >> > I am looking to buy an Alpha to run FreeBSD/AXP on. I have the ability >> > to buy a DEC Alpha XL 300 workstation and it looks like a good deal. >> > It's got a 300Mhz 21164, 32MB of RAM, a 2.1 GB SCSI HDD and a SCSI CDROM >> > in it. All for ~$450 USD. What I want to know is, is this as good a >> > deal as it sounds, and will it run FreeBSD well. I have been unable to >> >> It won't run any of the *BSDs at all, because it does not have an SRM >> console. > >And before someone asks: there won't be any SRM either. $450 is a stiff >price to pay for what is essentially a dead-end NT-only (OK, it can run >Linux IIRC) box. Yeah, I finally found some info on that last night. It's disappointing. Anyone want to recommend some reasonably priced Alpha dealers online, closeout and refurbished preferable to top-of-the-line, brand new. If so, please email me off list, no sense discussing it further here. If I understand the way Linux manages to run on these machines correctly is it has a miniloader which swaps the PALcode out before booting the OS. Is there a specific reason this approach has not been pursued by the BSDs? I'd imagine it would be dependent on the ability to swap in a PALcode functionally equivalent to the already supported SRM PAL. Is it just an issue of DEC won't release a public version of it? -- Brandon D. Valentine <bandix@looksharp.net> "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example." -- Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSF.4.21.0010182016001.10190-100000>