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Copyright simply screws everybody who didn't think of it first. It's nothing but a holdover from 19th century industrialists who wish to control everything.

Noooo, sorry, we were looking for patent. PATENTS let you screw over everyone who didn't think of it first. (For 20 years, at least - then everyone gets to use the technology you described publicly and in great detail on your patent application.)

Copyrights are necessary and important, moreso for the layman than the Evil Corporation(TM). The classical example is "You write a song and someone performed it and makes millions off of your work." Copyrights are what make that illegal, and what make the GPL and other "copyleft" schemes possible.

You might be tempted to say that without coypyright, the GPL wouldn't be necessary - everyone could use everything because there'd be no licenses of any kind to stop you. Let me knock down a straw-man for a minute and point out that the GPL and other F/OSS licenses do more than allow public-domain-style copying. The GPL, for example, requries someone who uses GPL-licensed code to release his code under the GPL, also.

Copyright laws require $big-evil-19th-century-industrialist-man to release the source code of his $program if his program uses GPL'd code. Without copyrights, he is free to take F/OSS and use them in his own $program, without giving the source code back to the community.

It's why we still burn petroleum and use lame, kludgy x86 processors while better existing technology rots on the shelf waiting for a higher price

Did somebody "copyright" (or are you still talking about "patents"?) the dark matter reactor, or the Magic Battery, or something? We use petroleum because it's a cheap (yes, it's still cheap relative to other fuels), efficient, and easily obtained fuel.

We use 8086 clones because of the insane amount of software produced for that architecture. An insane amount of software was produced for that architecture because Microsoft licensed their OS to Tandy and the like (something Apple wouldn't do), which brought cheap computing to the masses.

Better technology doesn't "wait for a higher price." If it's not worth buying, it's obviously that hot. Consumers wait for lower prices as technology improves.

Yes, I'm sure there are "better" processor architectures out there - and they're being used where the differences are actually worth the cost. Servers use all sorts of interesting procs and arrangements, where a faster server is worth dealing with the idiosyncrasies and higher costs of a more exotic chip. But, I'm sorry to say that your $359 Dell machine is not going to see a I've written machine language for x86, Z80, and 68K derivatives, and the x86 isn't all that bad - and with compilers and programming languages, how kludgey the underlying architecture is doesn't matter as long as it runs efficiently enough. Our Intel and AMD chips run fast enough, and they're cheap. The DEC Alpha was expensive, had complicated instruction set, and provided no advantages over the x86 for programmers or desktop users - so it's used on many-CPU servers and processor farms.

You managed to post to slashdot despite using an x86 machine, didn't you? I'm happy you suffered through the ordeal. The DEC Alpha "rotting on the shelf" will not help you one bit unless you start writing and posting a billion posts every second. The Itanium-series chips succeeded in the marketplace because they play nice with existing software, are cheaper, and provide the same benefits.

I'd love to see some specific examples of "better existing technology rotting on the shelf" due to patents or "19th century industrials" or whatnot.

(Score:0, Flamebait) There ya go! Send in the drones [stlyrics.com]... to fight for what they think is theirs...even when it's not. Stamp out the rabble rouser and his

I always preferred the AlphaLinux logo here myself, it certainly looks more alive and aggressive.

1. You're gonna need multiple Linux flavors and versions from multiple sources that specialized in these platforms.
   
   • ALPHA
     
   • ARM
     
   • I686
     
   • IA64
     
   • M68K
     
   • PowerPC PenguiPPC Denx
     
   • MIPS
     
   • S390
     
   • SuperH
     
   • UltraSPARC
     
   • X86_64
     
   
   
2. To determine which versions of crosstool (compiler, linkers, debugger), check out The Matrix Guy (Dan Kegel), or more specifically THE MATRIX of workable gcc/g++/ld/gdb.
   
3. To ease your pain of figuring out the "./configure" options, definitely checkout PTXDist. Menuconfig is similar to Linux 'make menuconfig'. PTXDist also help to build a root file system in a jiffy, which in my book, is a PLUS!
   

I've been using a upgraded RedHat 7.2 for quite a while on a LX164 and DP264. I've been meaning to try Fedora AlphaCore 1.0 (based on Fedora Core 3). See http://www.alphalinux.org/ for download and torrent links.

For Tru64, have you seen the info for the cheap non-commercial version at http://www.tru64unix.compaq.com/noncommercial-unix / ?

I never understood why nobody made an Athlon=>Alpha shim board to run to run an K7 in an Alpha EV6 box or vice versa.

I doubt it'd have been pin-compatible.

However the defunct API Networks, the company into which HP and Samsung divested marketing of Alpha, did make an Alpha/AMD box, the UP100 and UP1100 (best link I could find), which was a Alpha EV67 with an AMD AMD-751 "Irongate" "northbridge" as memory/pci/agp/ev6 controller, as used on early K7 boards. The UP1x00 wasnt too popular though, it's memory performance sucked compared to the EV67 boxes which used the DEC 21272 "Tsunami" northbridge, like the DEC DP264 and API Networks UP2000.

So yes, the "Athlon" Alpha did exist..

"Itanium is a poor architecture. This isn't just my opinion, it's the opinion of the professor here at UT Austin working on the multi-core lightweight processor"

Your professor's opinion is... well... flawed.

Itanium is an excellent architecture. Its flaws come from politics:

An excellent architecture has no faults. Clearly, the Alpha architectuer would b considered The Excellent Architectuer(TM) as it out-performs the Itanium2! Go check the benchmarks for a 21264CB Alpha!

1: Itanium requires good compilers. For now, that means compilers from Intel. GCC will be fine for running Mozilla on an Itanium, but technical apps simply won't perform anywhere near the performance of the machine when compied with GCC.

It appears Itanium is in a chicken-before-the-egg issue: Hello Mr. Anderson, what good is a CPU's outstanding performance...when...there...exists...no...outstan ding...compiler? The Itanium arch has been available for 3 years and there has not yet been a Good Compiler(TM) for it. Here is Itanium2, an update of the Itanium architecture, and there is not Good Compiler(TM) in sight. I have more confidence in buying swampland and praying to God for a drought to dry it all up. Better yet, I hear there is some HOT land for sale in California that has potential; a smoking deal, just a few issues of supply and demand of fire-fighters just-in-case...

2: Intel wants to market Itanium as a server chip. That means that they are putting 3MB or 6MB on the high end Itaniums. Soon they will have a 9MB cache version. Lots of cache means lots of transistors means lots of heat.

There is no spoo^H^H^H^Hserver chip. Yesterday's dedicated servers are today's 1337 workstations.

3: Intel is not fabbing Itanium with a state of the art process. Intel leads the world in process technology, yet their Itanium is still on a 130nm process. Before Madison (about a year ago), it was on a 180nm process.

Yea, ok Mohammed...

Some misconceptions:

1: Itanium is "inefficent". This couldn't be further from the truth. At 1.5Ghz, it whoops *anything* else in SPECfp (by a margin of 1.5x or more) and matches the 3.2Ghz P4 or 2.2Ghz Opteron in SPECint.

Itanium2 is latest technology and has already been whooped by the Alpha CPU. Sure, it's arguabl on the Itanium2's actualy performance when the COMPILER can't put all that Performance on the pavement. From an architecture that didn't require a compiler written in the future to be taken forward in the past using a mod'd Delorian; AlphaLinux.org, providing a link to a Heis.de article with a benchmark between Itanium2 and Alpha. Itanium2 is inferior to 2-year-old Alpha technology, and so is PowerPC4.

2: Itanium is "slow". Wrong again, see above.

Somewhere in Jerusalem, a Yeti is jumping on his desk flinging his poop at Developers(TM) and shouting: "Compilers, compilers, compilers, compilers!"

3: Itanium doesn't scale. Wrong again. Itanium scales better than any other current architecture, getting nearly 100% of clock in both int and fp. Opteron gets around 99% int and 95% fp. Pentium 4 gets around 85% int and 80% fp. I don't have data for PPC970.

Shit! Flying Shit! In Air! "Compilers, compilers, compilers, compilers!"

4: Itanium is expensive. This is true, but it has to do with politics rather than architecture. Itanium uses *fewer* transistors and does *more* instructions per clock than a RISC architecture. Itanium takes much of the logic out of the CPU and puts it into the compiler (this is why you need good compilers). Itanium's architecture is called EPIC, or explicitly paralell instruction computing, because each instruction is "tagged" by the compiler to tell the CPU what instructions can and cannot be executed in paralell.

I hate to have fed this troll. I'm a dope ped

This nifty thing has been available on the Alpha machines for 10 years or so.

Having worked in a shop that was primarily Alpha hardware, I have had a lot of experience with this.
The entire office was getting upgraded to PC's because everyone thought that they were slow, running Alpha NT on a mix of XL300s and 500as (with the 21164 processor). They were going to ship all of the Alphas to DRMO (military salvage yard). I volunteered to install Suse of 12 of the machines and use them as terminals to our Alpha server (quad 21164).

Using alplalinux.org as a huge reference and much heartache I mangaged to get all of them installed with Suse. Much to the surpirse of the DEC/Compaq rep that worked in our office that said that it couldn't be done....... HA

As others have pointed out the 2.4 kernel series has been painful on alpha. This is symptomatic of the fact that the alpha/linux community has died, completely. The two big alpha sites, Alphalinux (referenced in the article), and Alpha News have disappeared. I've been checking almost daily for months. In the last few months I've had a very hard time finding packages. I installed redhat 4 years ago, after a painful wrestling with the pre-release debian of the day. Now redhat 7.2 for alpha is still not out yet, despite the fact that it's been out for i386 since the beginning of October. Redhat sees the writing on the wall too. Their rawhide likewise hasn't seen a new package in a good while. Now I wish I had tried harder with Debian.

I've always hand-installed a lot of packages, but lately, since I can't find binary updates to redhat at all, I've been compiling more and more by hand. And lots of them don't compile. 64-bit cleanness is not something most programmers do by default. (hint: do not use long unless you really know what you're doing!)

It is ironic that in this day where everyone is anticipating the next great 64-bit chip (x86-64/Itanic), I am contemplating moving back to the 32-bit world, after using 64 bits for 4 years, because maintaining it is becoming a chore. DEC/Compaq/HP has really shot themselves in the foot. Between all their mergers and questionable "roadmap", they've alienated their fans, supporters, customers, employees, and even the Hewlett family. Their engineers left for AMD (and you wondered why the K7 was so much faster than the K6 -- buy Athlons!) their compiler guys and patents left for Intel (boycott Intel!), and there's little left of the original vision.

So all you tinkerers out there, I encourage you to buy up all the surplus Miata's you can find! And help the plight of Linux/Alpha and 64-bit clean code across the OSS landscape! Because 64-bit processors are going to become more prevalent, not less, and the world needs people on 64-bit machines to test stuff! (only about 5% of the packages I run into don't compile and run out of the box on alpha/linux -- but those 5% need to be fixed!) And everyone buy a USB PCI card for it too, because the current USB drivers suck! They can hang my kernel.

Oh, and an alpha makes a great firewall/router since all the script-kiddie buffer overflow hacks don't work. (all the script kiddies use buffer overflow attacks that insert x86 code onto the stack...this obviously doesn't work on alpha) A little bit of security through obscurity can help. But don't neglect real security!

--Bob

... That stands for "Electro-Vlasic" :-) The AlphaLinux.org web site has the pointers.

Actually, "EV" stood for "Extended-VAX" very early on when the strategy was that VMS (when it was still "VMS", not "OVMS") was the only operating system that would be using the Alpha. (And, Alpha was the code name for the Extended VAX, 64 bit architecture project - the only time that a project's code name was officially transmorgified into the final product name. The 'AXP' crap was a short-lived marketing affectation).

The "21" in the CPU part number referred to the 21st Century, in the hope/belief that the architecture would last well into the 21st Century. The middle digit refers to the various iterations, just like Intel, and the "64" refers to the ALU data path bit widths. The EV3 was the first experimental chip, with little or no memory management (and no FP, 'tho I can't remember). The EV4 was the first production release, used in the various DEC 3000s and 4000. The EV45 was so named because it was an EV4 made with EV5 parts, and its part number was 21064A. The EV68 is basically an EV6 (21264) made with the 0.1something process that was originally envisioned for the EV8. And, yes, there's an EV7 forthcoming (and that's no secret - it was part of the overall announcement), and yes, they're bloody fast, and they'll be shipping before decent Unobtaniums will be.

And, yes, I'm an AC, but I hope that the reason is fairly obvious by now...

We're also working on the alpha port. Take a look at this page. E-mailing sympa@linux-mandrake.com with "SUB cooker-axp" in the body will start you on the road to beta-testerhood.)...

You are delusional.

Windows has existed in its present forms for about five years.

I presume you are judging the OS by the GUI. Windows NT version 3.1 was released on July 17, 1993. The GUI was different, but the architecure was there, care of David Cutler.

That was the release date. Microsoft recruited David Cutler in 1988, well before Linus started.

Superior UI? Look at the quality of window managers. I'm sorry, but Sawfish, Window Maker and Enlightenment all kick Windows' butt when it comes to utility and control. And themability makes them look good too.

OO Architecture? Um, I think you'll find Gnome and KDE are riddled with OO.

Greater variety of hardware? NT had x86, Alpha, MIPS, even PowerPC, but they're all unsupported now. The free OS's easily wipe microsoft's peachy behind with their portability and the number of actual ports. All of those above plus loads more.

They've had the desktop market since the PC clone became popular. There wasn't a real desktop market before this. They didn't take that from anyone.

Yes, NT is taking share from Unix. But the free OS's, chiefly Linux, along with the rise of the Internet, is challenging this.

MSFT has perhaps produced a greater volume of useful code in five years than anyone else ever has
No, they just keep re-releasing the same code with new bells and whistles. The bulk of the code has been made by other companies, later bought up by MS.

Perhaps you can tell I do not like MS. I grew up with MS and I used to love their products. I still like the style of their early manuals (when you got them). But maturity and familiarity have given me perspective. I think you need some too.

I still need to upgrade my box to patato and check-out ccc, but all in all, it looks like the box will never run Tru64, then :-/

Note you can run some Tru64 apps on Linux anyway, with the tru64-compat package shipped with Red Hat.

I wasn't impressed by the speed of say... povray compiled with gcc, but with an alpha compiler released by compaq, I should still see some improvement in my calculations...

Quite possibly. Isn't povray floating-point? GCC isn't very impressive on FP yet...

You ever tried to solve a 4000x4000 double float system? it's... slow. All I'm waiting for is a decent 4 to 8 SMP athlon box with 2Gb of memory.

Maybe. It helps when working with such code to understand your cache architecture and virtual memory. Tuning the algorithm to improve locality (and avoid processor stalls) can reap huge benefits. Chances are your working set is too large to fit in cache. Page coloring could help (if Linux supported it, that is).

If you want to try something interesting, profile your code with iprobe. That can tell you a lot about your code. Besides it's something your Intel-using friends can't do...

SMP may or may not be the answer. If your code chokes on main memory throughput, SMP will aggravate the problem.

I saw this juicey bit over at the AlphaLinux Homepage.. The Linux kernel's assembly routines for Alpha have been updated, resulting in a large system performance boost on EV6 machines.

Jensens are one of the first alphas designed as straight workstations w/ standard PC busses on them (vs DEC's TurboChannel), and therefore are dinosaurs by current standards. it's like trying to find support for an 80286 these days.

I didn't like my experiences too much with linux on sparc. It was very buggy and X never supported the framebuffer card at more than 256 colors, while solaris could push it to 16.7M. and it was SLOW. the slowness was what got me the most out of the whole thing.

as far as documentation goes, Alpha Linux dot org has one of the best sets of docs on alpha on the net. They even have a searchable mail list archive that's been very handy for me when I've needed support on things.

Uhhh...I don't know what you're talking about. Two things: AFAIK (I worked on the VC compiler for Alpha) FX32 was never "outlawed". In fact, it was integrated into the Alpha version of Win2000. Second, FX32 is a moot point since Compaq dumped NT as an Alpha OS. Even if FX32 was "outlawed", it wouldn't be why Alpha will never be a consumer platform. It would be because Windows is a dead OS, as far as the Alpha is concerned (boy that's fun to say).

And the FX!32 technology is still available for Linux, where it's known as em86, allowing you to run Intel binaries on your Alpha Linux system for the odd application that doesn't include source :-(

However, if you want to go cheap, then don't buy branded machines from the Q. Pick up an Alpha motherboard from a third party.

http://www.alphalinux.org/ would be a good place to start looking.

You might also want to visit the EGCS site, which mentions Alpha updates to GCC as recently as March. GCC does support the newer EV6 architecture. The problem with Linux is more that large portions of it are hand-coded for the GCC assembler -- and optimizing kernel code doesn't do much since so little time is spent in the kernel anyway. ;-)

I HIGHLY recommend doing this if you're a little hardware savvy (like to tinker), and are fed up with Intel's crap (like me). But then again there's always the Athalon. But then again the alpha still beats the Athalon at floating point.

The DCG people have been very good to me as well. When I first got the thing, I accidentally nuked the Flash BIOS, because I'm an idiot. They were very agreeable, and sent me a new motherboard. All I paid for was shipping! Try and get that out of some no-name Taiwanese fly-by-night PC outfit!

--Bob

www.alphalinux.org
The link is a vendor list, alphalinux.org is a nice place to look for info. Also check comp.os.linux.alpha .

You won't be able to get a new alpha for less than $3500US, but used ones are available for cheap, sometimes free.

This is Interesting. The x86 world is still playing catch up to us Alpha Linux users.

On Alphas we have no such limitations on disks/boot loaders.

Also on Alpha Linux we can now use up to 2TB of RAM!

Now what we all need is EXT3 so we can have > 2GB filesystems and files!

You might have heard of the DEC Alpha. It's a 64 bit architecure supported by Linux and FreeBSD. The models are numbered thusly:

• 21064 - About the speed of a mid-range Pentium
• 21164 - The speed of a low-end PIII or Athlon
• 21264 - As much as twice as fast as Intel's best
• 21364 - Not released yet. Rumored to be insanely fast

There are some tweaks to the above CPUs, like the 21066 and the 21164PC. These are usually slightly modified Alphas, sometimes with more cache or workstation-bound, rather than servers.

The ultimate in low-end Alphas is the Multia, also called the Universal Desktop Box (UDB). The Multia uses a 21066 running at either 166 MHz or 233 MHz. The speed is comparable to a Pentium 75 or 100 in integer performance, and around a 200 MHz Pentium in floating point.

The Multia comes in a slimline case about the size of a laptop. It's got everything integrated on the motherboard: two megabyte high, performance PCI video; 44 pin 2.5" laptop IDE interface; fast SCSI-2 (10MB/s) internal and external connectors; decent quality sound chip, capable of good MP3 playback; two external PCMCIA slots; two serial and one parallel port; floppy drive; and optional internal 340MB or 540MB SCSI-2 hard drive. It also optionally comes with two 72 pin parity SIMMs (they must be installed in pairs, and there are four slots). The memory is JEDEC standard, which means you can use normal, PC SIMMs, but they must be true parity (ie, x36 SIMMs).

You can get a complete 166 MHz Multia, with 24MB RAM (dual 12MB modules), 320/540MB hard drive, case, and everything else mentioned above on eBay for between $100 and $200, depending on how many people have bid on it. It's quite easy to find them complete for $120, but you might want to settle for buying a barebones system (no hard drive, no memory) for $75 to $120, if you already have an external hard drive and/or parity SIMMS.

I bought mine new in the box for $120 shipped. It didn't come with memory, hard drive, or floppy disk. Unfortunately, the Multia floppy disk seems to be incompatible with normal 3.5" floppy disks, so I had to buy one for $40. Yeah, that's overpriced, but I decided to waste a few dollars getting a floppy now than search hard for one and save money later.

You can get 4.5GB SCSI-2 hard drives on eBay for less than $100, external SCSI-2 enclosures for less than $50, and external SCSI-2 CDROMs for less than $25. This is if you wish to have a standalone workstation. The Multia will work just fine as a diskless client or even headless.

I bought a 14" SVGA monitor at a computer show for $25, and it works great with the Multia. The Multia supports up to 1280x1024, which is much more than my old SVGA monitor can do. Incidentally, it's a DEC monitor. :)

I'm not sure how to do the 10" LCD screen, but I'm sure you could come up with something if you looked on eBay. In fact, I did see a 10" LCD screen on eBay a little while ago, but it required a proprietary ISA controller card. Someone has to be manufacturing these things if Netpliance is using them, though.

If you need more info, you can go to the AlphaLinux web page, which has incredible amounts of info on DEC Alphas and Multias. If you wish, you can also e-mail me at mkracht@aye.net .

I hope this information is of use, and I hope someone sees it so long after the story is posted...

WAHOO!!! I've been waiting a long time for someone to pick up the pace with Alpha! Took a while, but hopefully this is it!! Excellent news for us Alpha Linux users!!!

LONG LIVE ALPHA LINUX and FreeBSD too!

I just so happens I was visiting alphalinux.org today and saw Compaq has "just released" a document detailing the Alpha 21364 EV7 SMP on-chip processor. However this document has been out since I believe the October 1998(?) Microprocessor Forum. However, IBM's proposed 2 GHz at 500MHz FSB is quite intrigueing. I know... I know... Compaq seemes to be letting the Alpha wilt away on it's once strong vine but I'm still rooting for it. I remember when Alpha had reached 600MHz and Intel/x86 were sputtering along at half the speed. It wasn't until after the settlement between Digital and Intel did x86 start speeding up. Hmmm...anyone else smell fish? Well here's hoping that the Alpha can bring itself back to it's glory as speed king. And hopefully before the Merced/Itanium "Marchitecture" infects the corporate world.

Cool, but some systems, like Alphas, have had this since they were created. It is very handy for headless systems too! Besides that you could always put that terminal you always wanted in the bedroom so you can code, code, code! I want a terminal in the bathroom, kitchen, and especially the living room. That way I can code during comercials without missing the start of a show or keep up on the latest mail with mutt or pine. (mutt rules all mailers BTW)

But, I still have not had any luck compiling a kernel for my Alpha other than the standard RH kernels. Either that, or they would be remarkably unstable. Not sure if anyone else has had this problem.

I haven't. But I haven't tried a 2.3.x kernel either. 2.2.14 has worked very well for me. Are you trying to build a generic kernel, or one tailored for your machine?

As far as SRM goes, I didn't realize that Compaq dropped the support for it.

You mean they dropped AlphaBIOS...

Maybe I should look at SRM again. It might be worth checking out. I believe I read somewhere that you could not switch back from AlphaBIOS->SRM.

Nonsense. I don't have the SRM info offhand, but you can probably find out from www.alphalinux.org. Changing your console firmware means simply flashing the new version in. Some systems (Multias) have the capacity for both in ROM, most don't. You don't want to flash too often though, the flash ROM has a certain lifetime. Also you probably will not be able to run NT once SRM is installed.

Macs? Wouldn't that integrated monitor take up a lot of space? Boy... Think of the deskspace that would take up! No thanks!! I'll stick with a nice rackmount Alpha!!! :-)

LONG LIVE ALPHA LINUX

I think this deserves a entirely new project! Distributed.net is about cracking codes and Seti is about listening for alien transmissions that we don't even know exist... I think listing for the mars lander should get a project of it's own. Who knows, your system might actually be the one that finds it. Just think of the bragging rights to that: "yep, I found the mars lander when NASA couldn't." While distributed.net and seti are good causes, finding the mars lander should be at the top of the list. After all we know it's there, just don't know if it is still intact. I don't know about the rest of you, but I for one would like to know exactly what happened to the darn thing. Did it make it there ok? Did it completely miss? Did it go down in a big fireball and leave a nice mess for us to clean up some day?

So I say it should get a whole project to itself and hopefully some day in the not to distant future we'll find out what happened.


rbf, Alpha Linux powered and proud of it!

This is so cool! I have waited quite a while for some of these games. I can hardly believe we are actually getting them.
Although I have one question: Will they be available for Alpha Linux or just x86 Linux? Anyone know? Thanks!


LONG LIVE ALPHA LINUX!!!

First:
I visited that site and there are NO 21264's! The fastest they have listed was a 600MHz 21164. A 500MHz 21264 is the same as a 1GHz 21164 (assuming someone had a 21164 that was clocked that high), but as I said there are no 21264's... Perhaps you should read all of the results before commenting that ANY single processor is faster then a single processor 21264!! (sorry for the ranting ;-)

Second:
The GNU C, C++, and fortrain compilers are VERY unoptimized on Alpha comparied to x86. I suggest you use the Tru64 UNIX compilers to compile the benchmark app and run it on a 21264 (whatever speed, 500MHz+) and see how much faster it really is.


LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

Any links on this? Anyone used it?

Yes, it's called em86.

I dug up the info from the alphalinux faq. I've used it myself, however I had no luck with icecast when I tried running it emulated. There were a lot of other issues so I'm not sure that em86 was at fault. That's about the extent of my personal experience with it.

http://www.alphalinux.org/faq/FAQ-16.html

numb

Using WHAT tests? I am having a VERY hard time believing a OC'ed 400A beats a 767MHz 21264! Also, a LOT of the speed problems on Alpha come from the compiler not optimizing very well or at all. Now that Compaq has released their Fortran and C compilers (and C++ soon) things will change quickly! Ohh, and AFAIK you CANNOT compile code as 32-bit binaries on Alpha Linux, you can on Tru64 UNIX and run it on Alpha Linux, but you cannot compile a 32-bit binary on Alpha Linux!

LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

until they fix those nasty bugs and release a version for us Alpha Linux users! Then I'll buy as many copies as I can afford/have machines for..

LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

Does anyone know if there will be versions for non-x86 systems? Specifically Alpha?

Thanks!


LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

It seems to have started about the same time Andover bought them, althought I'd hate to think that's the reason..

LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

The current OS strategy makes perfect sense:

Windows (98/NT): x86 systems
Tru64 UNIX: Medium to High end Alpha's
OpenVMS: Very High end Alpha's
Linux: low end Alpha's


LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

I always end up with the monitor that wont work "out of the box" in X. For example my main workstation (an Alpha) has a 20" IBM P200 monitor. I tried all of the default settings but none of them work. I also tried a couple of the GUI based configurators but they don't work very well either. I always end up using xf86config. This seems to be the best out of the bunch IMO. With xf86config I can enter ALL of the settings by hand. Then all I have to do is edit '/etc/X11/XF86Config' and disable all but 32bpp mode. After that X works nicely. YMMV.

LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

Before your wife kills you can I have your Alpha? :-)

LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

What role did she play in Young Frankenstein? I had a look at CNN's article, but her picture doesn't ring a bell..

LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

This just figures! I quit supporting/liking Intel products several years ago. Intel does very little R&D, instead they copy everyone elses technology. I'm for compititon, but when they specifically copy a product to rip off someone else (i.e. DEC's Alpha) they should hang! This patent bit is getting WAY out of hand, I think we need to stop this and soon. - Or maybe start our own country with RMS as president? - Just kidding! ;-)

LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

Actually you can get Alpha's with 28GB of RAM and I think one of them supports 32GB... Linux on Alpha only supports 2GB, but there is a patch that allows 4GB. There is another patch, that I haven't heard of anyone actually trying, that allows 8GB of RAM. Try searching dejanews or the Red Hat axp-list archives.

LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

Well coffee or tea is always good, the more the marrier! Geeky clothes, this is a must for those who only change clothes when they go to ALS, LW, etc. I like some of the shirts available from Computer Gear. The "Dilbert Network" shirt is nice. "Any Idiot," "Stupid Computer," "Never Far," are all nice. "Resistance is futile" and "Man Pad" are funny! I really like the "UNIX" shirt, might have to ask for that one..

brought to you by rbf, who is using his trusty Alpha running Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 with kernel 2.2.13.


LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

Well coffee or tea is always good, the more the marrier! Geeky clothes, this is a must for those who only change clothes when they go to ALS, LW, etc. I like some of the shirts available from Computer Gear. The "Dilbert Network" shirt is nice. "Any Idiot," "Stupid Computer," "Never Far," are all nice. "Resistance is futile" and "Man Pad" are funny! I really like the "UNIX" shirt, might have to ask for that one..

brought to you by rbf, who is using his trusty Alpha running Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 with kernel 2.2.13.


LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

gzilla? I think it's gonna be the ultimate browser!

LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

This is very strange. Maybe Billy Bob is helping Al run for President? This does remind me of a quote:

"How could this [Y2K Bug] be a problem in a country where we have Intel and Microsoft?" -- Al Gore

I love that quote!



LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

Is it just me, or is anyone else annoyed by the way that when a commercial product is released with "Linux support" the implicit assumption is "x86 Linux only"? Since I only run non-x86 Linux (primarily LinuxPPC, although also AlphaLinux), I'm more than a little irked at that bias. Given the fact that Linux is a multi-architecture operating system, I'm tempted to say it amounts to false advertising.

Will software vendors ever wise up and say "x86 Linux" when that's all they mean? Or are we doomed to be stuck with the assumtion the "Linux" means "x86 only" unless otherwise specified as long as x86 is the dominant CPU architecture?

First of all, if you are interested in Alphas on Linux.. go to AlphaLinux.

There are vendors listed there that can get you set up (look to the right... I recommend Hard Data and DCG myself).

As far as this *deal* forget it! Okay, probably a year ago I would have said yes, but not now. Not for Unix-guru-wannabe. I am having so much fun hacking linux up and especially XFree86 on Alpha. (VooDoo3 is really really fast on alpha!)

You see, my friend, what makes the Alpha so fast, is *smart compiler technology*. A decent compiler like egcs is __NOT__ going to produce really optimized alpha machine code. What to do?

Well, previously we were rolling and unrolling loops like a smoker. Then we were hand tuning. Using asm().

And then Compaq did a stunning thing. They released an optimized math library. They released Compaq Fortran for LINUX. And then they stunned me again. They released their C compiler.. natively for Linux.

Now before you go banging on the cathedral walls.. consider that egcs would require quite a rewrite to really do the "right" thing on Alphas. If I know jack about compilers, I'd try.. but compilers are spooky black magic.. right up there with human cloning for a application/driver hacker. (imagine a compiler, that compiles it's own source code.)

Of course if you're considering Tru64, I assume that you don't have qualms paying for software in the first place. I don't have problems paying for software that doesn't pretend to non-commercial open-standards blah blah. A compiler produces an executable. Done. If I don't like it in the end, *toss*.

Anyhow, this brings me to my final point. If you don't buy the developer tools for this system, you can only use gcc. Which at that point you might as well be using linux.. because I guarantee you that Digital Unix ain't going to make poop difference in performance if you're compiling using egcs/gcc. I don't think the developer tools are going to cost 99 bucks though.

So if you're like me and just love the "beauty" of a well designed and implemented OS such as Tru64, then go for it. If you've got the right hardware and all.. it's perfect.

Otherwise, skip it. Get a nice DS20 from Compaq(or at the least a 533 MHz 164LX. It uses PC100 SDRAM DIMMS.. and PCI slots) Load Linux. And when it comes time to compile.. consider that you might want to use the ccc (compaq c compiler) for intense programs. Gains of 10 to 30 percent speed increases are pretty good.

Roger

Unfortunately, Alphas have a reputation of being refridgerator-sized machines with

• AlphaLinux.Org
  A good starting place. They have tons of links to vendors, list-archives, news, FAQ's, etc.
• DCG Inc.
  I've had good luck/great service from these guys. Alpha pricing starts at $1295 for a 533-mhz bare-bones kit.
• Compaq's DS10 (21264-500mhz)
  The 466mhz model does over twice as well as a G4 in SPECfp. I seem to remember stumbling across a sale (from Compaq) for these little monsters for $2999, though I can't find the link now.
• Microway
  Never dealt with them personally, but they have fast machines and a all-around good reputation. They also sell quadputers and compilers
• eBay
  You can often find cheap Alpha hardware on eBay. Over 6 months ago, I put together a PC164-500/64mb system for about $600. Read the AlphaLinux.Org FAQ's, HOWTO's and HCL before you buy anything.

For reference, here are a few (single-cpu) spec*95 figures... (mostly from spec.org)
INT- FP-- processor
20.3 13.3 Mac G3/466mhz
22.3 15.1 Intel P-III/550mhz
21.4 20.4 G4-450 Mhz 7400
16.2 23.9 UltraSparc/450mhz
18.0 27.0 Alpha 21164/600mhz (very old now)
24.6 47.9 Alpha 21264/466mhz (new "low-end")
32.1 53.7 Alpha UP2000/667mhz

DISCLAIMER: I'm in a real sarcastic mood and may say things some may find offensive! If you don't like what I have to say, DON'T READ IT! Of course, if you don't read it, how do you know you don't like it???

Hey I just moved into college which means a sweet dedicated connection.

Hay is the first stage of horse manure...

Don't be too upset when you find that everybody and their brother/sister use that same connection and it's so saturated that you can't use it!

What do people use to run web cams on Linux?

A computer running Linux with a web cam attached, duh! ;-) There are many different cam software out there, pick one and find out what camera is best supported by it. As for computers, I personally like older Alphas (21066A 233MHz vintage) running Linux; webserver, ftp, mail, file server, and web cam. All rolled up into one nice "compaq" (joke, Compaq now owns Alpha :-) system. A AS200 4/233 can be picked up anywere between $100 and $300 dollars or more depending on what you get with it.Check eBay for usually good deals on older Alphas. But your want's and needs will probably vary...

What are good compatible cams too?

The QuckCam's are popular, just make sure you don't buy a VC modle, as they are not supported last time I checked. Check the list archives for your Linux distribution or even better yet do a power search on dejanews.com and seach comp.os.linux.* for cam or webcam or something.

Good luck and have fun!


Long Live Alpha!

2. What kind of performance do they get compared to something like the Athlon?
8. Where can I get one?
Actually, there's a couple of other vendors that you should be ableto get one from, VA Linux comes to mind a s possibily. API may have a list ofvendors on their site, but I'm not sure.

As far as performance goes, the '264s are todays king-of-the-heap for numerical (FP-intensive) computation, but you definitely want DEC (Compaq)'s Alpha compilers (with Linux versions now available for beta-test-- because they use the Alpha predicated instructions (and some other technical stuff about bit-alignment vs. byte/word alignment in "gcc), they will perform 20-30% better than EGCS gcc, which itself will do much better on Alphas than the previous "standard" gcc 2.7.x or 2.8.x (the latest 2.9.5 is egcs gcc).