questions about alpha

[Jay Estabrook]

On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 04:42:45PM -0500, Alex Deucher wrote:
> I just picked up an old alphastation 500 on ebay and I'd like to
> install gentoo on it.  I've read over the handbook, but I have a few
> questions.
> 
> - ecu seems to be required to enable the sound card on AS500.  Is that
> an srm utility, an external utility, or something I run from linux?

ECU should not be needed for use of the card under Linux; it is really
needed only for Tru64.

> - has anyone tried alphacore on AS500?

Yes, and was successful, using a Permedia-2 based card (ELSA Gloria
Synergy 8). 

> - I'd like mess around with xorg on alpha.  I'm running srm 6.7-2 and
> it won't post my pci radeon 9000, so for the time being I have an old
> s3virge in there.  does anyone have any experience with the newer srm
> (7.2) and radeon cards?  I've heard arc/alphabios is better at posting
> video cards.  Is there any truth to that?  Also I seem to recall
> having read somewhere that milo or aboot will also post video cards is
> srm can't.  Is this true?

MILO will indeed POST more cards than the BIOS emulation in that old SRM.
I do NOT believe you'll have better luck with the later SRM version.

If you really want to run 3D on a Radeon in there, I suggest you use
ARC/AlphaBIOS and MILO to do so; I've had luck doing just that on an
AS500. Use the MILO for XLT.

> - How does one upgrade the srm?  I've not be able to find any
> particularly clear instructions anywhere.  DEC/Compaq/HP's
> instructions seem to be about all there are and they are pretty vague.
>  They all talk about some firmware/sdk cdrom that you can boot to
> upgrade.  I haven't been able to find such a disc anywhere.  Can I
> just burn the fireware update .exe files to cdrom, or is some special
> preparation required?

The latest FW files are on ftp.digital.com. I'd try either the BOOTP
method or the floppy method. Note that with the latter, the directions
have to be "translated" from Tru64 to Linux... :-)

Apparently the latest (V6.9) CD ISO is not yet available. Regardless,
you wouldn't have found the AS500 FW on there, it has long been left
off.

Good luck.

 --Jay++

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Jay A Estabrook                            HPTC - LINUX support
Hewlett-Packard Company - ZKO2-3/N30       (603) 884-0301
110 Spit Brook Road, Nashua NH 03062       Jay.Estabrook at hp.com
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