this is great if you run UniProcessor and certain hardware. Some of the hardware that I run is just plain not supported. For example, my DigitalServer 5300 just plain doesn't run FreeBSD or NetBSD, but cranks along just fine under linux, and Digital Unix is out of my price range plus it takes forever to set it up so it will compile and run GNU apps.
You also have to have SRM on the machine to boot those. it's not an option, that's required. Machines like the UX will never have a hope of running it (no SRM available), but it will run linux via Milo.
the only thing that I've had a problem with is a UX (Ruffian) and those are well documented as being funky boards. I've worked with a lot of other alphas and have never had any major problems getting linux running on them (assuming the hardware was still good).
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.
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sure! run the Tru64 version on top of AlphaLinux....
You also have to have SRM on the machine to boot those. it's not an option, that's required. Machines like the UX will never have a hope of running it (no SRM available), but it will run linux via Milo.
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.