[rescue] Appropriate OS for Alpha?

[Dave McGuire]

On July 22, Chris Petersen wrote:
> NetBSD is definetely a good route to look at, and is something I'll probably
> start evaluating for my home use.  That said, *don't* expect that just
> because you're running NetBSD or Linux you'll be home free on hardware
> support.  I've found a couple of things to be true:
> 
> 1) Assuming that just because it's supported in a given x86 variant doesn't
> mean it'll be supported in a non-x86 variant

  Hmph.  Well, I've run a BIG HONKING PILE of different kinds of
hardware under NetBSD/alpha on literally dozens of different Alpha
systems (admittedly mostly PCI machines) for a very long time, and
have never managed to get my hands on anything that wasn't supported
or was supposedly supported but didn't work.  Ever.

  No, I take that back.  I have an HP-IB controller and an obscure
Compaq RAID controller that aren't supported.  But that's it.

> 2) If you're using SRM as your boot console, you'll be amazed at the
> hardware it'll get in the way of using...Heck, I couldn't even get a DEC
> ZLXp-L1 PCI framebuffer to work in a 600au, which is only slightly newer
> then the machines that used that card...

  I agree that this can be a big problem.  Clearly the folks responsible
for developing SRM have a certain lack of real-world clue.

          -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire                  "Needing a calculator indicates that
St. Petersburg, FL              your .emacs file is incomplete." -Joshua Boyd