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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uunet!yeshua.marcam.com!news.kei.com!news.byu.edu!cwis.isu.edu!u.cc.utah.edu!cs.weber.edu!terry From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development Subject: Re: NetBSD for Alpha (?) Date: 1 Nov 1993 21:39:57 GMT Organization: Weber State University, Ogden, UT Lines: 51 Distribution: world Message-ID: <2b3vnd$rmr@u.cc.utah.edu> References: <kordas.46.2CD2A321@snowhite.eeap.cwru.edu> <2aub0o$4hq@nntp.ucs.ubc.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.weber.edu Keywords: BSD, DEC, ALPHA In article <2aub0o$4hq@nntp.ucs.ubc.ca> felawka@sitka.triumf.ca (Larry Felawka) writes: >In article <kordas.46.2CD2A321@snowhite.eeap.cwru.edu> kordas@snowhite.eeap.cwru.edu (Timothy Kordas) writes: > >Has anyone seen a publically available BSD for Alpha ? > > > > > >It would be a realy shame to run VMS on a nice new machine...:) > >I agree. But why not run DEC's Unix-like OSF1? It runs great (for a new OS). A number of us people associated with WSU have been threatening to do this port, to the point of merging the NetBSD/FreeBSD source trees. It should actually be a *very* easy port for the AXP 150, which is an EISA machine, although there needs to be some more distinction made in the compilation directories for the sources (differentiation is based on processer, and bus differentiation should be a different category from processer and is not in the current NetBSD tree). There is one individual who has actually got the instruction rescheduling code into an assembler and is on the way to having a working crosscompilation environment. The fact that the AXP 150 uses an EISA SCSI controller that is already supported (the AHA1742) and a Compaq Qvision SVGA helps, although the PS/2 keyboard and mouse might give problems, as might the default ethernet adapter. The two big obstacles in the way right now are: 1) I can't spend time on it without a release that the resulting code could be redistributed. There is some frustrating paperwork to go through with my employer over this (I'm working on it, I'm working on it). 2) DEC isn't recognizing the people involved as developers, for some reason, and the price tag on the machines needed is a bit high for some of the people to afford for entertainment. My employer can't pass developers discounts on except for PC and MAC hardware from certain sellers, and since none of use are really on the buying track at WSU, we can't get the educational discounts for what would amount to personal machines. If you want contact information for the other individual, I can furnish it; my hands have been tied pretty much as far as any actual coding, so he's the one to talk to. Terry Lambert terry@cs.weber.edu --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.