Linux/Alpha is for real: pretty much everything is up and running: there is XFree86, LaTeX, ghostview, Netscape, Emacs, gcc, C++, NFS, automounter, all sorts of shells, perl, python, Java, Tcl/Tk, scheme, apache HTTP server, and pretty much anything else that's freely available. X11 works well on several video cards (see below). Thanks to Dave Taylor and Linus Torvalds, there is now even a for Linux/Alpha! Since April 1997, it is now also possible to run many Linux/x86 binaries through the em86 emulator. (See section ) The list of applications supported by em86 includes gems such as applix, Netscape, and acrobat. The emulator has been made available free of charge by Jim Paradis of Digital Semiconductor. Linux/Alpha presently runs on most of the Alpha boxes that come with the PCI or EISA bus. This excludes the old TURBOchannel based DEC 3000 series of workstations. Supported Drivers

X11: Almost all XFree86 drivers work on Linux/Alpha. Perhaps the biggest missing feature is packed 24-bit support. 32bpp/depth 24 works fine, though. The SVGA server on Alpha supports only a subset of the cards supported on Intel: Matrox and S3Virge are supported, but a number of older chipsets are not. SuSE is actively involved with the development of XFree. If you have a card that isn't supported yet, you may find a driver at their . There are some development X servers available from Digital's FTP ; you might check there if XFree86 doesn't work on your system. Commercial X-servers are available from MetroLink and XiGraphics. (See the section on commercial software.) You may need these if you have a very new graphics card. keyboard console (TGA, EGA+ or VGA+ compatible cards) selection (console mouse support) serial line-printer (centronics port) floppy SCSI: disks, CD-ROMs, and tapes seem to work fine. Host adapters that are known to work: NCR/Symbios 53c810, 825, 875 (use the ncr53c8xx driver),895,896 aha1740 (on Jensen, at least) BusLogic (all cards ISA or PCI cards should work fine except for the Flashpoint; EISA cards may be flaky in older EISA systems). Qlogic ISP1020 support for Adaptec cards in now fairly solid though users do occasionally have problems with them. ftape (QIC-80 tape drives) IDE driver: disks and CD-ROMs (ATAPI) are known to work. Networking: Ethernet drivers: de4x5, de500, depca, ewrk3, ne2000. The following drivers are supposed to be working as well: Western Digital (aka SMC Elite) wd80x3 SMC Ultra SMC EtherEZ 3Com 3c503, 3c503/16, 3c509-B, 3c509-C Cabletron e2100 Hewlett Packard PC Lan (model 27245, uses hp.c) Hewlett Packard PC Lan+ (model 27247 or 27252A, uses hp-plus.c) Ansel AC3200 EISA card. AMD PCnetPCI (79C970 and 79C970A) based Ethernet cards (LANCE32 driver). Intel EtherExpress Pro/100 Other drivers: ppp, ibmtr (IBM token ring driver). ISDN: ICN 2B and ICN 4B cards (if you have problems with them, contact ). Cameras/Scanners: QuickCam (both grayscale and color versions). HP ScanJet reportedly work. Mustek flat scanners are supported, too. Sound cards: SoundBlaster compatible cards seem to work well. The Microsoft Sound System compatible card built into the UDB is supported, too. Joystick: The joystick interface on a SoundBlaster16 (which is just a regular PC joystick port) is known to work with joystick-0.7.3 (as a module). There were a few minor patches that had to be applied. If you want it, send mail to . The "koules" game is known to work with the joystick. Known Bugs And Workarounds

This section lists known bugs in Linux/Alpha and discusses how they can be avoided or worked around. As things are under constant development, this section is rather volatile. Just because it isn't listed here doesn't mean the problem isn't known already. On the other hand, if you run a recent distribution, it's likely that most of the problems have been addressed already. In any case, before sending mail off to , be sure to check this section first. If you discover a new problem/workaround, we would appreciate if you could send us a report (preferably in linuxdoc SGML format). /dev/sda2 hard coded as its default root file system. Thus, if your root file system is on any other disk or partition, you will have to specify the boot option root=/dev/root-partition. For example, if the root file system is on /dev/hda1, you'd specify root=/dev/hda1. ELF When using set env LD_BIND_NOW=1 from within /dev/fd0H1440 instead of /dev/fd0. X(26738): unaligned trap at 000000012004b6f0: 00000001401b20ca 28 1 What this means is that the process executing command Linker issues This is a warning message that is often issued by the linker when building a large program. Unless you're into low-level hacking, you don't want to know what it means. The good news is: you can safely ignore this message and this warning will be optional in the future. hdparm -u 1 /dev/hd? This reconfigures the IDE driver to re-enable interrupts as quickly as possible. tar xvMf /dev/fd0 hangs. (This bug should not occur on GNU libc-based systems.) Due to a bug in the malloc package that comes with libc-0.43, multi-volume tar archives do not work. Recompile and link with the gmalloc stand alone package, or get an updated libc. ARC console and SRM console keep dates in the time-of-year (TOY) clock in slightly different formats (actually, only the "year" field differs). The "/sbin/clock" binary normally expects the format which SRM uses; you can, however, tell it to expect ARC format instead, using the "-A" flag. Thus, to read the clock when its kept in ARC format, say "clock -r -A", and to write it, "clock -w -A". If its not written in the expected format, the console (ARC or SRM) will prolly complain about it the next time it has a chance... :-\ The best way to ensure you're using the correct format, is to set the date via the console's date-setting facility; under ARC, it's a menu item some place, under SRM it's a command (IIRC; try "help date"). Then you must ensure that the "clock" call in the RH script /etc/rc.d/rc.sysconfig KNOWS WHAT FORMAT TO READ THE TOY IN!!!! If you're using ARC console to boot MILO/kernel, do: 1. running RH 4.1, make sure /etc/sysconfig/clock contains: CLOCKMODE="ARC" 2. running RH 4.2, make sure /etc/sysconfig/clock contains (at least): ARC=true Now, If you're using SRM console to directly boot a kernel, then: 1. RH 4.1, same file, set CLOCKMODE="" 2. RH 4.2, same file, set ARC=false Refer to /etc/rc.d/rc.sysconfig for details about how the above are used to call "clock" with the appropriate arguments. while true; do /sbin/clock -r [-A]; done (use the -A option when your hardware TOY clock is in ARC format) If you see any inconsistent results, you need to upgrade your /sbin/clock. Get one of: gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Linux-Alpha/Kernels/clock-pc164-rh4.2 gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Linux-Alpha/Kernels/clock-pc164-rh50 0>0>0>0>0>0> Standard MILO images are configured to talk to the first serial port as well as the screen. When you have a modem connected it will talk back. To resolve this, either make sure your modem is turned off at boot time, connect it to a different port, or build your own MILO, disabling serial port echo. In fact, other apps will show the same behavior: it really is a X will not start on Ruffian (164UX), UP1000 or UP1100 Starting X fails with "Failed to set IOPL for I/O". Cause: the stock 5.1 GLIBC doesn't recognize the RUFFIAN system type. This is fixed in most recent distributions if you still encounter this do ln -s EB164 /etc/alpha_systype For UP1000,UP1100 systems change the system type from above to Tsunami: ln -s Tsunami /etc/alpha_systype The following distributions are known to have this problem for the UP1000, UP1100: RedHat < 6.2, Debian < Woody. RedHat 5.1 and 5.2 for Alpha shipped with a buggy ipfwadm. The common workaround is to use ipfwadm from RedHat 5.0. (Note: when you're running a 2.1.* or 2.2.* kernel you'll be using ipchains instead.) Instable configurations with Adaptec SCSI controllers. This seems to occur with Adaptec 2940 on PC164 in particular. Improvement has been reported after turning off the autodetection of device speed, width and termination. Get the utility from: http://www.windowsnt.digital.com/support/drivers/drivers.asp/ Put it on a floppy, or any FAT partition, and select "Run a program" from the ARCBIOS menu. (Newer systems will allow you to configure SCSI controllers by running the onboard utility through the i386 emulator in the firmware.) XL266 refuses to boot after setting time. When you forget to use the -A option when setting the hardware clock on an XL266, the ARCBIOS may see an invalid time, and refuse to boot any OS until this has been corrected. Unfortunately, when the setting is sufficiently invalid, it will not allow you to do so. (This is definitely a bug...) To recover you need a modified version of linload.exe. (Thanks to Juergen Schroeder this is available from .) Put it on a floppy, together with your favorite MILO, and use the "Run a Program" option to start it. Once in MILO you can boot linux, and set the clock again. Be sure to use -A this time... (I believe the modification to linload.exe is that the location of MILO is hardwired into the program.) Porting to Alpha: the Here is a somewhat random collection of popular ways of shooting yourself in the foot on Unix when programming in C. This has practically nothing to do with Linux or Alpha, but since Linux/Alpha is among the pioneers in 64-bit land, these errors are more likely to show on such systems. Many programs assume a long is 32 bits wide. This is non-sense. The ANSI C standard does not specify anything like that. For example, on an Alpha running a grown up operating system such as DEC Unix or Linux, the fundamental C types have the following sizes and alignment restrictions: Note that the above implies that you cannot cast a pointer to an integer without loosing bits. In fact, Alpha binaries by default are purposely arranged in such a way that if you try to do this, they'll dump core---it is much better to learn about such program errors via a core dump than through some subtle errors. If you need a variable with exactly In the kernel, use the following types instead: However, the availability of these types is somewhat system dependent. In particular, on a 32 bit machine, the 64 bit integers are typically available only when using GNU C. Also, keep in mind that there are still machines out there that have odd word sizes, such as 36 bits. So, for the sake of portability, these types should be used sparingly. inet_addr() returns netinet/in.h. An even better solution is to avoid this function all together. Reasonably modern libraries provide the Many Linux programs incorrectly assume it is all right to mix and match Atomicity of sub-word loads/stores It is generally not safe to assume that reading or writing a quantity that is smaller than the machine's word size is atomic. In particular, all early Alpha chips do not have atomic instructions to read or write a byte or a short (16 bits). Unless you're into kernel hacking where you need to synchronize with devices and/or interrupts, you probably won't care. But even in user-space this can cause problems in case your program is sharing data with another process through shared memory, for example. Are There Any Mailing Lists I Should Join?

Yes, we suggest subscribing to the "axp-list" mailing list. To subscribe, simply send mail with a subject of "subscribe" (no message-body) to: .

There's also the Debian-Alpha mailing list. It's a must when you use that distribution, but it also carries discussions on topics that Red Hat users might be interested in. Visit to subscribe.

There are also several other mailing lists for AlphaLinux. There's a complete list and archives available at .

If you're curious to see what's going on in the Japanese Linux/Alpha scene, the "linux-alpha-jp" mailing list is for you. Subscribe to that list by sending mail to with a body containing the line "subscribe linux-alpha-jp". Be advised that many mails are written in Japanese (ISO-2022-JP). And How About NewsGroups?

The group started in June 1997. It should be available on most servers by now, and can also be read through . What's The Minimum Configuration To Run Linux/Alpha?

Linux/Alpha is known to run on machines with as little as 8MB of RAM and a 170MB harddisk. In those 8MB of RAM, you can run Emacs-19.28 without swapping, but that's about it. A system with 16MB RAM and 500MB is perfectly reasonable to work with, even when using X11. 32MB RAM and on the order of 1GB of disk should satisfy even power-hungry users, though, as usually is the case: the more the better.

(Well, I guess one's perception of what is reasonable can change with time, and with DRAM prices. I know that by now many people would consider 32MB the bare minimum, 64MB usable. Recent releases of RedHat seem to need at least 24MB just to install... And you'll have a hard time looking for a hard disk smaller than 2GB.)

Note that, though many Alpha mainboards support EIDE, performance is reported to be unsatisfactory. SCSI is recommended. How fast is the Alpha ?

This depends on the type of system you have, and what you are trying to do.

The Alpha is a RISC processor: it has fewer and simpler instructions. Thus, at the same clockspeed, it will generally be slower than a CISC processor. But, being simpler, it will be easier to build processors that run at higher speeds. The fastest Alpha (now at 833MHz) will outpace the fastest Intel processor (1 GHz.) This will remain true for many years to come. (It will also be more expensive.)

In BogoMIPS, Alpha's up to the 164 show a speed approximately equal to the clock frequency in MHz (like Intel's 486 and early Pentium processors.) The 264 has a BM value of twice the clock speed (like Pentium MMX and higher.) This, however can not be taken as a true indication of the speed for real applications.

RISC instructions are fewer and simpler, so you need to execute more of them to get the same amount of work done. On top of that, they are also larger. So, to keep your Alpha running at full speed, you need large caches and high memory bandwidth. Most Alpha's have two levels of cache on chip, and the newer boards also provide wide (128 or 256 bit) memory busses. Some of the older Alpha systems, however, do suffer from lack of memory bandwidth.

The Alpha has earned itself a reputation for floating point performance. However, it takes a very good compiler and libraries to achieve the optimum. Until recently, this meant that the real numbercrunchers would often revert to Digital Unix. Recently, though the compilers in the Open Source arena still lag behind, large improvements have been made w.r.t. the libraries and compilers. Compaq has ported the Tru64 (Digital Unix) over to Linux. They are available for free download for academic and personal use, commercial use does require purchasing a license. What Systems Does Linux/Alpha Run On?

The number of Alpha platforms that are supported by Linux is quickly increasing. The following is a list of workstations and motherboards that are known to work with Linux. If you have any corrections to the list, please send mail. More information on these system types is also available at the .

The ES40 is currently one of the largest Alpha machines that runs Linux. It's available with 1-4 500MHz CPUs with 4MB of cache or 1-4 667MHz CPUs with 8MB of DDR cache, and supports up to 32Gig of memory. Linux kernels for these machines should be compiled as either Generic or DP264.

The difference between the DS10 and the DS10L is that the L version is a 1U rack-mountable unit, whereas the standard DS10 is a desktop box. These are based on the Tsunami chipset and have CPUs at either 466 or 600MHz, with 2MB of cache. Linux kernels for these machines should be compiled as either Generic or DP264.

These are the last true workstation products to come out of Digital/Compaq. From now on all the workstations will use the same parts as the servers. The XP1000 is sold with either a 500MHz (Monet) or 667MHz (Brisbane) CPU and both are based on the Tsunami chipset.. The XP900 is sold as a VMS workstation. Linux kernels for these machines should be compiled as either Generic or DP264.

and Products of Alpha Processor Inc (now API NetWorks Inc). Both are based around the AMD Irongate system controller and can take up 768MB of memory (3slots, PC100 Unbuffered ECC 168Pin DIMMs). The UP1000 uses API's slot B and can accommodate either a 600MHz 2MB or 700MHz 4MB slotB. The UP1100 has a 600MHz processor soldered to the board and a 2MB cache (all the CPUs uses in both boards are EV67). The UP1100 also has UDMA66 support (UP1000 has UDMA33), onboard sound (use the trident driver is 2.2.16 or later) and an onboard 21143 (tulip) ethernet controller. Both boards also have dual serial, parallel and dual USB (yes, the USB does work under Linux). Linux kernels for these machines should be compiled as either Generic or Nautilus.

Another product of Alpha Processor Inc, now API NetWorks Inc. They are very similar to the DP264 series except that they can only take 2Gig of RAM (8 Slots, uses PC100 Registered ECC 168Pim DIMMs) and have a different SCSI controller (Adaptec Ultra2Wide). Instead of using the daugthercard approach that the DP264 uses, the UP2000 and UP2000+ use the API SlotB which contains the processor, cache and VRM. SlotBs for these boards are available in the following configs: 600MHz 2MB, 667MHz 2MB, 667MHz 4MB, 750MHz 4MB, 750MHz 8MB and 833MHz 4MB (DDR cache, UP2000+ only). Linux kernels for these machines should be compiled as either Generic or DP264.

and The DP264 and DS20 are dual EV6 (or EV67) machines based on Tsunami. The DP264 is the OEM version and is almost functionally the same. They support up to 4Gig of memory using PC100 Registered ECC 200 Pin DIMMs with 16 slots. They also have onboard Adaptec SCSI (Ultra Wide) and support speeds of 500 or 667 (500s have either 2 or 4MB or cache, 667 has either 4MB (Samsung) or 8MB of DDR cache (Compaq)). Linux kernels for these machines should be compiled as either Generic or DP264.

Interestingly, this is not a Digital product. It was developed by Deskstation, (called RUFFIAN then), and is now being sold by Samsung. It supports speeds up to 800 MHz, and comes with on-board Ultra Wide SCSI (Symbios Logic 53C875), and 10/100 Mb Ethernet (Digital 21143). Like the 164SX an LX, it uses DIMMs (SDRAM) for memory, but it has 6 slots rather then 4.

is Digital's best bet. It's based on the AlphaPC 164, but with speeds up to 600 MHz, and using DIMMs rather than SIMMs. (i.e. SDRAM rather then DRAM.)

The low end of the EV5 generation is the . It uses the 21164PC variant of the Alpha microprocessor, at 400 or 533 MHz. This board is targeted at the NT Workstation market, but it will run Linux just fine.

For a complete Workstation you may want to look at Miata (Personal Workstation). This comes with a Graphics Card (Powerstorm) for which X11 support does not (yet) exist, but Matrox Millennium is a popular replacement.

Alcor (AS600), Bret (AS500). The Alcor kernel is supposed to work fine with the AlphaStation 500 as well. If you can confirm this, please let us know.

EB164. The Aspen Timberline and Summit machines are similar to this machine/motherboard. The EB164 has been replaced by the PC164 and it's successors (see above).

Cabriolet (aka AlphaPC64): This is a PCI-bus based motherboards using the 21064 Alpha CPU. It is more pricey than the 21066 systems but it does make for a real nice system and many third-party products are based on this design. This board typically runs at 275MHz but some vendors sell an (overclocked) 300MHz version. It really is historical now, but you may be able to find them at very attractive prices.

Mikasa (AlphaServer 1000). Noritake (AlphaServer 1000a) is supported as well, if you use kernels 2.0.30 or higher, with the appropriate patches. However, the builtin Cirrus graphics card is not (or very poorly) supported by X11.

Mustang (AS200),M3 (AS250),(AS255),Avanti (AS400) : Linux now runs on all of these AlphaStations. The reason for clumping all these machines together is that they are all very similar to program. In particular, they all can run one and the same kernel when booted using the same firmware. Thus, when configuring a kernel, simply pick "Avanti" as the system type since that covers all of the above machines.

XL The XL machine is also know as the "Windows NT Dream Machine." Well, for what it's worth, (most of them) are perfectly happy running Linux. The regular XL is based on the 21064 CPU and runs either at 233 or 266MHz with 512KB or 2MB of second level cache, respectively. The newer is based on the 21164A CPU and runs either at 300 or 366MHz. The Turbo always comes with 2MB of second-level cache.

ALPHAbook 1 The ALPHAbook 1 is a 21066A based notebook (the first and only portable Alpha, so far). Linux works fine on this machine with a few extra patches. An X server is available for this machine as well.

(aka DEC 2000 aka DECpc AXP 150): This is the oldest of all Alpha PCs and comes with an EISA bus. You probably don't want to buy such a machine new anymore since you can now get faster machines for less money. However, it is not uncommon to get really amazing deals for these machines and a Jensen definitively would make a nice home box. The firmware seems a little picky about what graphics card and SCSI controllers it wants, but if you're just looking for an affordable Alpha box, it might be worthwhile to look into it.

Noname (aka AXPpci33): This is a PCI-bus based motherboard using the 21066 Alpha CPU (Low-Cost Alpha). The core of the 21066 is the same as the 21064. The only difference is that the 21066 also has a memory and I/O controller integrated into the chip (which has the effect that the external interface is much simpler and therefore much cheaper). This board is available in a 166 and a 233MHz version.

: Linux/Alpha also runs well on the Universal Desktop Box. (That's the box that's called "Multia" when it's running Windows NT.) The TGA graphics card and the builtin soundcard are supported. The UDB is basically a Noname board with more hardware builtin and wrapped into a neat little box. So when configuring a kernel for it, simply select the "Noname" system type. The UDB currently provides the lowest-cost entry point into the Alpha world.

EB*: Digital used to sell various other evaluation boards (e.g., EB66, EB64+, etc.). Reportedly, Linux/Alpha may run on some of these. But they were relatively pricey and should now be considered obsolete. Unsupported Systems

Linux/Alpha is unlikely to support the TURBOchannel-based Alpha systems in the near (or any) future (this is the DEC 3000 series of workstations). The reason for this is two-fold: first, these machines have an I/O system that is very different from PCI-based machines and therefore do not look anything like PCs (e.g., pretty much all drivers would have to be written from scratch). Second, with the advent of PCI, the TURBOchannel is pretty much dead technology (for better or worse) and it just isn't all that much fun to develop software for dead technology (on the other hand, it may soon be possible to buy such systems cheaply, which would make them more interesting to Linux users, I suppose).

If you have such a machine and want to run a free OS, look for the *BSD's. At least one of them supports the 3000 series. Table

The table below (one of Jay Estabrook's many invaluable contributions) may prove useful to select the right MILO/Kernel/bootfloppy for your system. The following table may be useful; sorry, but I haven't put in the "family" designations explicitly, but the groupings and MILOs are indicative, mostly. --Jay++ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: "AS" can equally stand for "AlphaStation" and "AlphaServer", though both may *not* be available for a given platform. Hardware Type Aliases MILO image ============= ======= ========== DECpc 150 JENSEN N/A DEC 2000 Model 300(S) JENSEN DEC 2000 Model 500 CULZEAN AS 600 ALCOR xlt-alcor AS 500 MAVERICK,BRET xlt-alcor XL-300 XLT XL-366 XLT XL-433 XLT AS 200 4/* MUSTANG avanti AS 205 4/* LX3 AS 250 4/* M3 AS 255 4/* LX3+ AS 300 4/* MELMAC AS 400 4/* AVANTI XL-233 XL xl XL-266 XL xl Personal Workstation MIATA miata PWS 433a(u) PWS 500a(u) PWS 600a(u) AS 2100 (EV4) SABLE N/A AS 2100 (EV5) GAMMA-SABLE N/A AS 2000 (EV4) DEMI-SABLE AS 2000 (EV5) DEMI-GAMMA-SABLE AS 1000 (EV4) MIKASA N/A AS 1000 (EV5) MIKASA-PRIMO N/A AS 1000A (EV4) NORITAKE N/A AS 1000A (EV5) NORITAKE-PRIMO N/A AS 600A ALCOR-PRIMO AS 800 CORELLE AXPpci33 NONAME udb-noname UDB MULTIA AlphaBook1 (laptop) ALPHABOOK1 N/A AlphaPC64 CABRIOLET cabrio AlphaPCI64 AlphaPC164 PC164 pc164 AlphaPC164-LX LX164 lx164 AlphaPC164-SX SX164 sx164 EB164 EB164 eb164 EB64+ EB64+ eb64p EB66+ EB66+ eb66p EB66 EB66 eb66 AS 4100 RAWHIDE N/A AS 4000 RAWHIDE N/A AS 1200 TINCUP N/A ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, what should I buy? Boards

Most of the Alpha motherboards sold today go through Samsung and API NetWorks. Samsung handles some of the sales for Asia where handles the Americas and Europe. Systems

In general, it's likely that buying a complete system will actually be cheaper than putting one together yourself. This is especially true for many of the third-party systems and for Digital's XL machines. If you add the costs of all the components to the price of the motherboard, you'll quickly find that it's difficult to beat those prices. The good news about this is of course that it will also save you the trouble of having to find appropriate parts. A number of third-party vendors can be found through the page. They typically offer configurations based on 164LX and 164SX boards, but some may have nice deals on the older boards as well.

Linux will also run on some of Digital's server-class systems. Check the table in the previous chapter. Brief Alpha Systems Overview

A brief (but unfortunately rather dated) introduction and overview of various Alpha systems and processors on the market can be found in . Where Do I Get Alpha Hardware?

Check the page and the which both contain a list of vendors. Noname (AXPpci33) and Multia (UDB)

This section provides some more information on the Noname motherboard. There are some hints and tips that you might be interested in if you're considering putting together a system on your own. First off, here is what the Noname board looks like: . This section also includes standard benchmark performance results, which might help give you an idea of how a Noname system performs. Before going out and purchasing such a machine, please be aware that the Noname really is a low-end machine and as such is relatively low performance. The Noname ). That box is basically a Noname with lots of very nice builtin hardware. The last UDB's are now being sold at $ 99,-. Which Firmware Does Linux/Alpha Require?

You will need the OSF/1 PALcode to run Linux. Digital has made the firmware available for ftp so you can download the SRM console from . There are two serious drawbacks with the SRM console: it eats away 2-3MB of RAM and older versions cannot boot from IDE drives. With newer machines 2-3MB of memory is not all that significant, and IDE is support on newer platforms. Fortunately, the free replacement firmware doesn't suffer from these problems. Plus with MILO, you get all the sources! What Do I Need To Watch Out For?

Keyboard

If you plan on running DEC Unix (formerly known as OSF/1), you have to get a board with a PS/2 style connector. On the other hand, it seems a lot easier/cheaper to find cases and keyboards for AT-style connectors. (Nekotech seems to be shipping Noname motherboards with the PS/2 connectors on a slot-bracket which allows you to have the best of both worlds: a regular (cheap) AT-case without having to tie up a serial port for the mouse.) The only difference between the PS/2 and AT-style keyboard interface is the keyboard connector. The electrical interface is identical. In fact, you can buy AT to PS/2 converters in any computer shop for a few bucks. The advantage of PS/2-style board is that there is a second connector that can be used for a PS/2 mouse (i.e., no need to tie up a serial port with a serial mouse). But then again: economy of scale currently works in the direction that serial mice are dirt cheap and omni-present, which can't be said about PS/2 mice. Memory

Be careful about what kind of SIMMs you get. In particular, "logical parity" SIMMs do not work. What you should get is 70ns memory with 36bits/SIMM. These are also known as ECC SIMMs. Please refer to the OEM Design Guide for details. Also notice that some of the firmware simply Will Normal ISA Cards Work?

They should and, as far as we can tell, they really do work. Besides the drivers for the on-board interfaces, several other ISA cards are known to work already (e.g., depca and ne2000 Ethernet cards, sound cards, internal modems, etc.). Notice that the SRM console includes a configuration command called "isacfg" that allows to setup the PCI/ISA bridge. That command has an undocumented option What's Performance Like?

Notice that the numbers below are for DEC Unix. Linux/Alpha is likely to be less tuned at this point, but it gives you an idea of where the hardware stands. 233MHz, 1MB Second-level Cache

------------------------------------------------- DRAFT 0.02 Performance Flash AXPpci33, 233MHz Digital UNIX 3.2 1MB BCache ------------------------------------------------- SPEC CINT92 SPECint92 100.2 SPECbase_int92 91.2 SPEC CFP92 SPECfp92 112.7 SPECbase_fp92 107.8 LINKPACK 64-bit Double-Precision 100x100 MFLOPS 17.32 1000x1000 MFLOPS 93.95 Dhrystone V1.1 instructions/sec 263.012 v2.1 instructions/sec 250.000 Whetstone Single-precision KWIPS 249.292 Double-precision KWIPS 211.255 DN and R Labs CPU2 MVUPS 274.47 SLALOM Patches 5,686 MFLOPS 40.07 Livermore Loops Geo. mean MFLOPS 21.95 CERN CERNS units 28.99 ------------------------------------------------- To Probe Further

A lot of useful and detailed information is available at . Jensen (DEC 2000/DECpc 150/Highscreen AXP)

This section was contributed and was maintained for many years by Martin Ostermann. (Thanks, Martin !) Currently Martin doesn't own a Jensen anymore: updates for this section may be sent directly to

The Jensen was the first Alpha PC that has been available commercially from DEC. Not surprisingly, there are a few oddities with it. This section is an attempt to help people getting Linux/Alpha installed on a Jensen, and to provide additional information operating Linux on the Jensen. Installation

First off, there is no MILO for the Jensen. So it is unavoidable to use Jensen's builtin console. Unfortunately, it is severely handicapped with respect to boot command line option processing. Thanks to there is now a new loader that can work around these limitations. Secondly, the Jensen SRM console cannot boot from a floppy. This used to make bootstrapping Linux a real pain, until contributed a minilabel and writeboot programs executable from the ARC console. These tools can be download from the . The original version -- . The Jensen is supported by , but some things still cause trouble. The Jensen is different

The Jensen differs from other systems in several ways: . You'll also find other useful stuff there, ported by , like a ported SVGAlib. If you're interested in details, watch for the keywords . . WARNING: If you own an ELSA-Winner 1000 graphics adapter, don't update beyond version 1.7! Otherwise you'll not be able to use your card in EISA mode. This is probably due to a bug in the EISA BIOS of the card. Known Problems

Know Problem and workarounds: . If you own an ELSA-Winner 1000 graphics adapter and upgraded beyond firmware version 1.7, the card won't work in EISA mode. Turn the card, so that it is plugged in with its ISA side. Maybe you want to downgrade you firmware again. (Windows-NT 3.51 and 4.0 seem to work fine with firmware 1.7) is now available from Digital's FTP server. Sometimes people tend to blame the Jensen for general Alpha related problems. Please keep in mind that only the hardware is different, and that in most cases the kernel handles the hardware access. Thus for most programs it doesn't make a difference if they are being run on the Jensen or any other Digital/Alpha machine. Hardware Issues

You may ask yourself, how you can upgrade your system. Here are some suggestions, but please note that I actually If you want to run X, you need an S3 based card. Any S3 card (but, Miscellaneous Information

So what is the Jensen all about? There is a some information available online: The Evolution of the Alpha AXP PC (/) by David G. Conroy, Thomas E. Kopec, and Joseph R. Falcone. This describes the development leading to the Jensen system. Product announcement and description (/) by Digital. This is an overview of the Jensen system components and options. PB22H-KB System Module -- Hardware Reference Information () by Digital. This is an in-depth description of the Jensen hardware. AlphaStation 200

These boxes have become quite popular recently because they are now available cheaply (Digital is clearing out the warehouse ??) which makes them the successor to the UDB as a lower end way into the Alpha world. and are the places to get them.

Rick Taylor () supplied the following details:

Some more quotes from Rich's mail: "As with most of these older Alphas, upgrading the firmware is all but a necessity to install Linux. Mine came with an older SRM that just wouldn't load the Linux kernel without locking, and upgrading to the latest ARC fixed the problem. Mine came from the batch of Alphas that onsale and webauction have been (and still are, in the case of webauction) selling, so I'd assume other new AS200 owners might have similar problems." "To get the builtin sound card to work you need to recompile the kernel on RedHat. Fairly simple, but I just talked a guy through it on the RedHat-AXP list, so I thought I'd mention it. :)" "Something that surprised me when I first installed (before I hooked the machine into the local ethernet network and while I was using PPP): my modem wouldn't work on the first com port. I suspect that had something to do with the serial console setting. The symptom was the modem constantly getting traffic when no program should have been talking to it. Not too tough to figure out, but it could be rather confusing to someone who didn't get the documentation with their machine. A quick fix is to simply use the other com port for the modem." "My AS200 came with something of an oddity - an ISA card with two PCMCIA slots on it. According to the DEC shipping label it was an option, but as I don't have any PCMCIA devices, I removed the card from the machine and put it in storage. I'm not sure if/how the card works in Linux, and I didn't get any documentation for the card, so I don't have much information on it."

If you have bought one of them you may find the following URL's useful: both give a step by step recipe to get Linux installed. Samsung APC164UX (Ruffian)

(This section is written by .) Ruffian Links

for APC164UX boards. for APC164UX boards. for Red Hat 5.2. giving a good introduction to their Alpha systems. , Digital's Linux support page. Several useful Ruffian upgrades available here. Stefan Reinauer's .

Introduction

The Ruffian board is broadly similar to the 164LX board, but beefed up with six DIMM slots instead of four (giving a maximum memory capacity of 1536MB), and with on-board SCSI and ethernet. It also takes higher-clocked EV56 processors (up to 667MHz) and has more PCI slots. Hardware configuration:

Intel PIIX3 Southbridge and IDE controller. Symbios 53C875 SCSI controller. DEC 21143 Tulip ethernet controller.

In all, a well-configured EV56 workstation. Yet it is plagued with a bad reputation. The Caveat

While the vast majority have no trouble with their Ruffians (author included), a handful of users find fundamental shortcomings that make the board unusable for their applications. The Symptoms

A virtual memory stress-test that induces continuous heavy paging can cause the machine to die. The problem manifests itself through various "Unable to handle kernel paging request", "killing the swapper", "attempting to swap the idle process" messages, and a register dump. The system may become unusable after that.

The stress-test may run without failure (I have run it for three days without fault), or it may fail within seconds.

Some people claim this problem only arises with large memory configurations. The Fix

of Hannover University has identified that his processor has been overheating and believes that this has been causing the problems described above. He put some silicon paste between processor and heatsink and found that his machine became stable again. Silicon paste is an interface material that improves heat transfer between surfaces.

Other people have suggested that the problem is aggravated in large memory configurations.

Elsewhere it has been suggested that using the latest milo will help improve stability. Hardware Issues with the Ruffian Ruffian On-board Ethernet

The Ruffian's on-board DEC Tulip Ethernet is not very good at auto-sensing a 100Mbit link with the Linux Tulip driver. Using recent versions of the tulip driver appears to help. The author has also found the problem to be sensitive to the network hardware. By changing hubs, or even ports on the same hub, the problem disappears.

The tulip device driver page is well documented at:

These pages also contain instructions on how to install the driver. Alternatively, try looking at the section on building your own kernel in this FAQ. (The location of the tulip device driver in the linux source tree is drivers/net/tulip.c, copy your newly-downloaded version in here and you're ready to build)

If your ethernet doesn't autosense 100Mbit, there are some other options I have found to sometimes work, although we're in experimental territory here and what may work for me may not work for you.

Your first option is to hard-code your ethernet interface to be 100baseTX, bypassing the autosensing mechanism. However, this doesn't always work. What does sometimes work is hard-coding the medium to be 10Mbit, and then 100Mbit. The first packet will fail transmission, but after that the link is brought up in 100Mbit mode. To bypass the auto-sensing mechanism, edit tulip.c and put numbers into the options array, according to your media type as defined in an array further down the code (10baseT is 12, 100baseT is 4). If you still can't get this to work, try this patched version of the tulip driver, actually patched for the Miata by Loic Prylli. What it does is to keep trying with user-specified hard-coded media.

Again, your experience may vary... Video Cards

Older versions of MILO (the bootloader) required that the video card was put into the 64-bit slot. This was because all the other PCI slots are behind a PCI-PCI bridge which was not correctly supported by MILO.

However, work by Nikita Schmidt and Stefan Reinauer have addressed this problem and recent MILOs support a video card in any PCI slot, freeing that 64-bit slot up for better things...

You can find Nikita's work and Stefan's work . Stefan's work builds upon the improvements done by Nikita on the stock MILO available from Compaq at the Gatekeeper FTP site above. The Red Hat Release CDs and the Ruffian

Unfortunately, both Red Hat 5.1 and 5.2 releases have flaws to be aware of when installing on a Ruffian. Red Hat 5.1

For your first disk, you should use a different milo and ldmilo.exe file, which are downloadable from Gatekeeper, Digital's FTP server: How to build your milo disk

Take a DOS-formatted floppy Copy the two files above onto it, renaming them to 'ldmilo.exe' and 'milo' Thats it, you're done :-) Running XFree with Red Hat 5.1

If the XFree X server fails to start on your system, try adding the following link:

cd /etc; ln -s EB164 alpha_systype

If your graphics card uses the SVGA X-server (eg, if you have a Matrox graphics card), you should also pick up the patched SVGA server. ( ). Or, upgrade to a newer version of XFree, as packaged with any current distribution. Reading the time and date correctly with Red Hat 5.1

The Ruffian ARCSBIOS uses a different format for time and date. In releases of Red Hat up to 5.1, this meant that Linux would not report the correct date and time.

This can be fixed using: An updated version of the clock binary (try gatekeeper), by getting your date and time from another system on the network using rdate -s, or by using xntpd.

Date and time issues are fixed for the Ruffian in Red Hat 5.2 Red Hat 5.2

Unfortunately the Ruffian kernel provided on the Red Hat 5.2 CD doesn't contain support for the Symbios 875 on-board SCSI. However, you can take the kernel image from Red Hat 5.1 to perform the install. Once installed, you can build your own kernel - the sources on for 2.0.35 are tried and trusted. Which Graphics Cards Work With Linux/Alpha?

Linux/Alpha supports both DEC's TGA and generic VGA cards. The new PowerStorm cards from DEC are not supported yet. TGA Card

TGA is DEC's (first) family of workstation graphics cards for the PCI bus. It makes for nice and very quick cards. The only drawback is that since it is coming from the workstation market, it does Model: Description: ZLXp-E1 8-plane TGA (256 colors) ZLXp-E2 24-plane TGA (16 million colors) ZLXp-E3 24-plane TGA + 32-plane Zbuffer (16 million colors and 3D support) Caveat: as described below, only the ZLXp-E1 is currently supported by an X server. VGA Cards

Linux boots in VGA mode, so pretty much any graphics card should do for Linux. However, the graphics card also needs to work with the firmware. This is non-trivial since many PCI cards need proprietary wakeup sequences to bring them into a VGA compatible mode. To solve this problem, the firmware includes an x86 emulator that is used to execute the BIOS initialization code on the graphics card. In theory, it is therefore possible plug in any PC graphics card. DEC implemented an x86 emulator that is used by the MILO (Linux), SRM (DEC Unix), and ARC (Windows NT) firmware. This emulator is mature and can indeed initialize most, if not all, cards. To be on the safe side, take a look at the hardware-compatibility lists for DEC Unix and Windows NT before deciding on a card. MILO also comes with an (optional) emulator that is free. It is not nearly as mature as DEC's emulator, but it nevertheless is able to initialize at least following graphics cards: bus card type: chip: BIOS version: Note: === =========================== ====== =========================== ===== ISA Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 S3 805 ???? 4 ISA #9 GXE Level 12 S3 928 BIOS Version 1.13.03S PCI #9 GXE 64 PCI S3 864 BIOS Version 1.02.09u PCI Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM PCI S3 864 BIOS Version 1.14 1 PCI Diamond Video 64 DRAM PCI S3 868 BIOS Version 1.02 1 PCI Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM S3 764 BIOS Version 2.01 2,3 Notes: ====== 1: Reported by pgwduane@mail.atnet.net. 2: The S3 764 chip is mostly known as Trio64. 3: Reported by viper@ludd.luth.se. 4: Reported by jestabro@amt.tay1.dec.com. Cards Supported by the X Windowing System

According to the XFree 3.3.3.1 Release Notes: The following X servers are available for Alpha hardware: XMa64.tgz Mach 64 server XMono.tgz Mono server (generic driver only) XP9K.tgz P9000 server XTGA.tgz DEC 21030 (TGA) server XS3.tgz S3 server XS3V.tgz old S3 ViRGE server (please use SVGA server) XSVGA.tgz SVGA server (Matrox Millennium and S3 ViRGE drivers only) The S3 server is known to work with 764x, 805, 864, 928 based cards (e.g., Orchid Fahrenheit 1280, #9 GXE64, #9 Level 12, #9 Motion 771). The Mach64 server is known to work with WinTurbo GX-VRAM and Graphics Xpression CX-DRAM cards.

These servers are available from . More recent developments are available from . Check out the section on commercial software for other options.

For TGA not just one, but two servers exist: the first one is by the XFree project, as mentioned above. It's relatively young so it's not well-optimized yet, but it's definitively usable and since sources are available for it, anybody can improve it. The other one is based on DEC-proprietary code (sources are not available). It is fast and relatively stable and can be found . Can Linux/Alpha Run Without Graphics Card?

The firmware can be controlled over a serial line terminal at 9600 Baud and it is possible to boot Linux/Alpha in that manner. The kernel can also handle being booted headless without any trouble. Make sure to pass the kernel the device name of the console you wish to use. For example if you wanted to redirect the console to the first serial port, you would add 'console=ttyS0' to the list of flags sent to the kernel.

The other important thing to remember here is that by default there is no getty spawned on the serial ports. You must add a line like this to the /etc/inittab to be able to login on the serial port(s):

S1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty ttyS0

Then force init to reread its configuration file with: init q

By default you also can not login as root over the serial port. To add this ability add the serial port(s) (ttyS0 and/or ttyS1) to the /etc/securetty file. Where Do I Get Linux Software?

There are currently approximately four end-user installable Linux distributions for the Alpha available. Commercial products for Linux/Alpha also start to appear slowly. Some noteworthy products are listed in the next section. If you know of any other Linux/Alpha distributions or products, please mail . Red Hat

Red Hat is distributing the Alpha version of its well-known Linux distribution. Red Hat for Alpha is ELF-based and available both on CD-ROM and via ftp. The distribution uses the RPM system (Red Hat Package Manager) which allows easy installation of both sources and binaries. Besides installing packages, it also allows to keep track of what's installed and it can even uninstall packages that you don't like anymore. But Red Hat is a lot more than just RPM. Be sure to check their for all the details. The Red Hat distribution is available via ftp from the Red Hat . Version 6.2 has been available for some time now and 7.0 should soon be released, be sure to download the errata as well. all over the world are available as well. Debian GNU/Linux

Debian has now made two releases for Alpha. The first being Debian 2.1 (Slink) and now 2.2 (Potato) has been released. More information on Debian can be found at the and the page. Stampede

It seems that a distribution for Alpha is also being prepared by .

SuSE has also started releasing their Linux distribution for Alpha (starting with 6.1). The Alpha version is usually released a couple of weeks after the i386 port. SuSE can be found on the web at .

TurboLinux (formerly Pacific HiTech) has recently started porting their distribution over to Alpha. The first version being 6.0, they can be found on the web at . Sources

The Linux/Alpha homepage contains a list of ftp sites and mirrors that are used by the developers to make the latest and greatest version of various programs available. The Linux/Alpha home page is located at . Of course, the regular Linux ftp sites such as or are good for Linux/Alpha, too. Building a Kernel

If you want to build your own kernel you may want to follow recipe, by Harvey J. Stein. It's for 2.0.30: clean patches for 2.0.32 are available as well, and these can be used for 2.0.33 too.

Patches for more recent 2.0 kernels (up to 2.0.35) are available from . A set for 2.0.36 will appear as soon as Jay Estabrook finds the time to create them. Some people report some success by using the 2.0.35 patches on a 2.0.36 kernel.

Recent 2.1.xxx kernels will compile on Alpha without patches. For kernels up to 2.1.131, do not forget to comment out "SMP = 1" in the Makefile (unless you are compiling for an SMP-system..) In 2.1.132 SMP has been changed into a normal config option. With the system-type selections they also include a 'generic' option, to create a kernel that will run on any supported Alpha platform.

Likewise for 2.2.0 and 2.2.1 (2.2.* is just the continuation of 2.1.*, now declared stable.) Beware of 2.2.2. though: it needs additional patches to compile on non-Intel platforms. Commercial Applications

The list of native Linux/Alpha applications currently includes the following: Applixware The Applixware suite of office applications, which has already earned some fame in the Linux arena, is now available for Linux/Alpha too: BRU backup software Backup software is available from (the personal edition of BRU is included with Craftwork Linux v2.2/AXP). NDP Fortran Microway sells Fortran compilers for Linux/Alpha. Information is available at . NAG Fortran90 Alternatively, there's a compiler from NAG. Linux/Alpha is just one of many platforms supported. Check out their . Motif Motif for Linux/Alpha is now available for free. Look around the various Linux software sites for binaries and source. has also produced OpenMotif RPMs available for download. X servers also produces a commercial X-server. If your graphics hardware is not supported by XFree, you may want to check out their homepage. Open Sound System More and better sound-card support compared to what comes with the Linux kernel. Available from . Also don't forget to check out , the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture. They now have several Alpha machines and are ensuring that the next generation of Linux sound support runs on Alpha. XVScan XVScan is, you guessed it, scanning software to use with John Bradley's . (Thanks to Michael Champigny for pointing this out.) Picture Elements 's PCI image processing boards are actively supported under Linux/alpha. They also distribute some free , including tools/patches that will help you crosscompile from Linux/Alpha for a variety of other platforms. Multimedia software A variety of Multimedia software is available from , some of it for Linux/Alpha.

Also be sure to read through the pages for more commercial and non-commercial software.

Aside from the above native applications many Linux/x86 applications can be run under Linux/Alpha using the em86 emulator. See Section for details. How To Boot Linux/Alpha?

There are basically three ways of getting Linux/Alpha booted, depending on what firmware you're using. The preferred method of booting used to be to install MILO into the flash ROM. However, since all development on AlphaBIOS has stopped and there are only a few people left working on MILO, the preferred way is now via SRM console.

Installation of and booting with MILO is described in the the . Be sure to use a recent MILO! Booting with SRM is described in the . EM86: How To Run Linux/x86 Apps on Linux/Alpha

Thanks to Jim Paradis, it is now possible to run Linux/x86 binaries on your Alpha box. The em86 emulator is based on the FX!32 emulator/binary translator Digital produced for Windows NT. (Unfortunately the second part is The emulator is currently considered beta-quality, but it works very well for applications such as Netscape or Applix. At present, a UDB may not be fast enough for em86 (depending on your patience, of course) but anything starting at a 300MHz 21164 should do nicely. (If you are not satisfied with the speed, but happen to own a Digital Unix license for your machine, you may want to take a look at the next chapter.) A future version of em86 may include the ability to redirect shared-library calls to the native libs, rather than load the x86 versions which must be run through the emulator. This will not only improve the speed, but also save you a lot of discspace.

See the for details. The README file will provide you with all the info you need to install the emulator. Note that for kernel version 2.0.30 the em86-patches are included in the at gatekeeper, which may save you some work. Two quotes from the README

Here is what you can do with em86..

Application Notes EM86 has been tested on numerous test cases and small applications (xtetris, for example). In addition, three major packages have been verified to run to varying degrees under EM86. Following are notes on each package. __________________________________________________________ Application___________Notes_______________________________ Netscape Navigator Install Netscape Navigator Gold Gold 3.01 as per the supplied installation instructions. _____________ WARNING_____________ DO NOT under ANY circumstances enable Java or JavaScript until further notice. Attempting to use these WILL crash your browser. While this is a known problem even under Linux/x86, none of the suggested workarounds improved the situation. We are currently investigating this problem. __________________________________ If Netscape has trouble locating Internet hosts, but you can ping these hosts from the command line, try installing an /etc/nsswitch.conf file. Adobe Acrobat Reader Use the supplied install procedure 3.0 to install Acrobat Reader. With the em86-patch applied to your kernel, this application should run normally. Otherwise, you will need to modify the script /usr/local/Acrobat3/bin/acroread to use EM86 to invoke the acroread binary. Applixware 4.2 Because Applixware uses rpm for installation, you must override the architecture check. (rpm does not normally allow you to install the binaries for one architecture onto a machine of a different architecture). To override, copy the install script from the CD to a writable location, then edit the script to supply the "-ignorearch" flag to rpm. Since Applixware has binaries that invoke other binaries, you need to apply the em86-patch to the kernel for it to run. Since Applixware pushes lots of data on the stack, you also need to apply the traparg patch to the kernel.

..and here is what you cannot..

Restrictions The EM86 restrictions are as follows: o EM86 emulates user-mode code only. o EM86 cannot run programs that access virtual memory above the address 78000000. o EM86 does not now, nor will in the future, support the following system calls: setup, break, ptrace, stty, gtty, prof, acct, phys, lock, mpx, ulimit, profil, ioperm, iopl, idle, mx86, modify-Ldt, create_module, init_module, delete_module, get_kernel_syms, bdflush, afs_syscall, and sysctl. o EM86 0.9.1 does not support the following system calls that will be supported in future releases: mount, umount, uselib, old_readdir, sysinfo, ipc sigreturn, clone, adjtimex, quotactl, sysfs, flock, msync, mlock, munlock, mlockall, munlockall, sched_setparam, sched_getparam, sched_setscheduler, sched_getscheduler, sched_yield, sched_get_priority_max, sched_get_priority_min, sched_rr_get_interval, nanosleep, and mremap.

And if you don't care to spend all those CPU cycles while your Alpha pretends to be an Intel CPU, then the next chapter shows you an other way to make many applications available. How To Run DEC Unix Netscape on Linux/Alpha

(This section was contributed by . Note that the Linux/x86 Netscape binary can be run through . This is a bit slower, but doesn't require any special licenses. Now that Netscape's sourcecode is available, we expect to see a native Linux/Alpha version in the near future. However porting to 64bit proved more difficult than expected. A fairly stable version of Mozilla is available for download from . Or check out 's page for the latest developments.)

Support for running ECOFF (the OSF and DU version of Requirements

There are two separate lists of requirements depending on if you have access to OSF/1 v3.x or Digital Unix 4.x (Editor's note: Digital renamed DEC OSF/1 to DEC Unix somewhere around release 3.2---it's the same OS, just different releases). For DEC OSF/1 up to and including v3.2: Linux kernel version 2.0.x or 2.1.x (you must have ECOFF support compiled in) Access to an Alpha running OSF/1 3.x For DEC Unix version v4.0 or newer: Linux kernel version 2.1.23+ (you must have ECOFF support compiled in) Access to an Alpha running DU 4.x How-To

For both OSF/1 3.x and Digital Unix 4.x you must complete the following. Get /sbin/loader from the Digital machine and place it in /sbin/loader on your Linux box. Create a directory on your Linux box for /usr/shlib Get the following libraries from the Digital box and place in the /usr/shlib directory on your Linux box libXm.so libXmu.so libm.so libX11.so libXt.so libdnet_stub.so libc.so libXext.so If you are going to use Digital Unix 4.0 libs/loader you must also get: libSM.so libICE.so Get the file /etc/svc.conf from the Digital box and place it in /etc/svc.conf on your Linux box. Download from the OSF/Alpha version of navigator (e.g., get netscape-v301-export.alpha-dec-osf2.0.tar.gz from directory). Install it Run it!! Conclusion

This procedure has been tested on a RedHat 4.0 and RedHat 4.1 box with kernel versions 2.0.27, 2.0.28 (for OSF/1 3.x) and 2.1.23 (for DU 4.x). It seems to be very stable when running the OSF/1 libs/loader but I've noticed some problems with Segmentation Faults using the DU 4.0 libs/loader. I've also noticed that when using DU 4.0 libs/loader that the /etc/svc.conf file is not as necessary as when running the OSF/1 stuff. It does complain, but it is not fatal. If you have questions regarding this document please first refer to the archives for the axp-list mailing list/archive at , then if you didn't find your answer feel free to mail me at . All other comments regarding this section may be sent directly to . Mail

After setting Netscape up like this, sending E-Mail still fails. Oleg Gusev came up with the following solution: mkdir /etc/sia/ touch /etc/sia/siainitgood copy /etc/sia/matrix.conf from DU to Linux

There can also be problems with using Netscape mail as a POP3 or IMAP client as a non-root user authenticated via NIS (no local account). Netscape complains that no user name has been specified even though one has been entered. Threads

When you receive errors that mention DECthreads you need to do the following: (re)move libpthread.so and libpthreads.so from the shared library directory ln -sf /usr/shlib/libc.so /usr/shlib/libpthread.so/ ln -sf /usr/shlib/libc.so /usr/shlib/libpthreads.so/ This problem is known to occur with recent Netscapes and with Adobe Acrobat 3. Change Log

Dropped some FAQ's that were relevant to ancient distributions. Added FAQ's about PC164 clock, Milo/modem. Info/links for PC164LX/SX/UX. Miata now listed under supported systems. Mentions partial support for Millenium II in X11. , so all UDB links now point to that URL. Updated section on supported drivers (de500 Fast Ethernet card works as well). Added info on Japanese Linux/Alpha mailing list and ftp site. Updated section on German Alpha resellers. . Added info on Kenetics Technology board. Started list of known bugs/workarounds. Mention Added Jensen installation information. Joystick driver now works too (as a module). Universal Desktop Box is now supported! (See Section .) Updated Section . Updated entry for Red Hat as the first 50 or so packages are available now. Updated Section . Expanded discussion on how to boot Linux with the SRM firmware (Section ).