Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 20:44:08 +0200 (CEST) From: Sten Spans <sten@blinkenlights.nl> To: Wilko Bulte <wb@freebie.xs4all.nl> Cc: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Subject: DS15 (was Re: Alpha vs. FreeBSD 5.4 vs. X) Message-ID: <Pine.SOC.4.61.0507162029360.9294@tea.blinkenlights.nl> In-Reply-To: <20050716143914.GA13431@freebie.xs4all.nl> References: <Pine.PMDF.3.95.1050715145746.541297314G-100000@admin.athabascau.ca> <Pine.SOC.4.61.0507160101370.9294@tea.blinkenlights.nl> <20050716143914.GA13431@freebie.xs4all.nl>
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On Sat, 16 Jul 2005, Wilko Bulte wrote: > On Sat, Jul 16, 2005 at 01:03:24AM +0200, Sten Spans wrote.. >> On Fri, 15 Jul 2005, Richard Loken wrote: >> >>> >>> If you succeed at that you will be loved and admired by the entire Alpha >>> FreeBSD user community. Honour, fame, and happiness... what else matters? >> >> I would reserve that for vga on ds15-ish systems with vga connected >> to hose 1 instead of 0, which should cause even more interesting >> stuff to happen :). >> >> ( Not that fbsd works on ds15 now though :) > > Not that anyone has a DS15 (that I know of ;-) to play with it. After some digging I did it seems that the linux support was done by some compaq engineers a few years ago. And that even inside hp these boxen are quite rare. Only the bigger boxen (ds25, es45) sell in measurable quantities. That said, it does look like a ds15 will be available with remote console and tftpboot support in the hp testrun labs. It might be enough to get freebsd booting, because there should be only a few minor issues preventing a succesful boot. I've looked at the *bsd alpha architecture code, and found these to be pretty similar and small/minimal. The linux code is quite a bit bigger/messier, with a lot of code duplication and compaq in it's linux days added support for every error condition possible. This expanded the code quite a bit. But lifting out the main changes needed for the newer motherboard chipset should be doable, the main suspect seems to be the location of the srm bootcode, which has been changed. It wont solve the more complex issues like: - 2-4gb+ memory support - vga on different hoses - pci bridge chip breakage but should allow the box to be usable in serial console setups, which is how sensible people use them anyway :). -- Sten Spans "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." Leonard Cohen - Anthem
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