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OpenBSD's Alpha Support In Trouble
Nimrangul writes "Hours ago Theo de Raadt put out a call for an Alpha CS20, because as of last night OpenBSD no longer has one. The CS20 that died was a build machine and without it further support for the Alpha platform would be nearly impossible. If you have a C320 or other 1U Alpha machine that you would be willing to donate to the project, please respond to the discussion on the misc mailing list."
I wish them luck, but this has to give pause to anyone who wants to place a heavy bet on the continued availability of OpenBSD/Alpha -- if it can get wiped out because they can't get a specific piece of legacy hardware to fit Theo's rack!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Last night something went wrong temperature wise in my machine room.
One of the build alphas is now dead.
I think Theo should also ask for aircon. I'm willing to help but 1U boxes tend to get hot, and I see no point in all chipping in for a new Alpha box to see it go pop again in 2 weeks time. Theo, tell us what went wrong and what you've done to fix it or what we can do to help you fix it. Then we can worry about replacing the hardware - otherwise I think it's probably just as well to ask for Alpha hardware and rackspace in a reliable colo as send the hardware back to the same place.
Try NetBSD... safe,straightforward,useful.
the netbsd-alpha list is pretty busy. I unsubscribed when I sold my alphas because I didn't need the mail traffic.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
If you want to be sure something works properly you have to have the hardware it is supposed to be working on and test to see if it works on it.
NetBSD's setup does not actually make sure everything works, it makes sure it compiles under fake hardware.
That's how NetBSD's support for some platforms got so bad.
Given the amount of equipment in Theo's server room and given the importance of this equipment to the project, why not construct a thermal shutdown device? How about a machine with a number of temperature probes around various points in the room, and when they all agree that the temperature is hot, they initiate shutdown+power-off procedures on the machines in the room? Now, I realize that some of the machines in the rack are older and may not have self-power-off abilities but it seems likely that enough of them could power down to make a difference.
That last sentence is wrong!
Native compiling on a [slow] platform doesn't test that "everything works" for that platform, just that the native compiler generates some code on a given model. This is especially relevant for platforms with a diverse range of hardware, including Alpha.
Cross-compiling on a fast platform reduces the turn-around time for providing software to test on slower platforms. (Why wait a week for a build to compile when you cross-compile in an hour?). The NetBSD cross-build framework offers other benefits such as allowing build an entire OS release (including install media) without requiring root privileges or fancy OS support such as loopback disk drivers. More details in my BSDCon 03 talk and build.sh paper.
Either build method does not remove the need for actually testing the resulting build on the variety of hardware available for a given platform. That is a separate and more important issue.
(Why do [AC] fanboys of some operating systems belittle functionality that their OS doesn't currently have, only to about-face and shout to the rooftops when they finally get it?)
The lack of actual compiling on your fringe hardware is why the support for it is so bad.
While it is true that it can be compiled faster on other hardware, that doesn't mean that the machine itself can compile it's own copy of the operating system.
If my machine cannot compile it's an operating system supposedly designed for it, there is a problem with the code and most likely how it works.
Cross compiling can be handy for speedy development, but not quality development. That's where the actual hardware comes in.
I find it amusing that you'd suggest nobody uses NetBSD at a time when the front page of slashdot carries a link to a quaterly NetBSD report mentioning seven new developers, seven google "Summer of Code" projects and a number of donations from both individuals and corporations.
Just because we don't make such a song and dance over it doesn't mean we don't exist.
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They actually have a few of them, check it out. And next time, use google for the words "mini keyboard".
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
alpha chips were made into 2003, so it's not been dead that long