Ad Buijsen (ad@basket.iae.nl) wrote: > The problem with using the existing Alpha Mach (provided the sources are > available at all) is that it will probably be quite old: EV4 only. > Porting it to something more modern will involve tweaking PALcode at > least. Maybe, however, Mach's PALcode is closely related to DU's, so > that could be used (like Linux does) or relatively easily adapted. > Likewise, the porting of GNU Mach may or may not require the > development of its own Privileged Architecture Library. This is a > difficult task and you may need tools from Digital, I mean Compaq. I already have collected a lot of hardware docs for 2106*, 21164, and the current 21264* processors. For those that are interested the different generations break down as follows: EV4 - 21064 processor EV45 - 21066 EV5 - 21164 EV6 - 21264 EV67 - 21264A EV68 - 21264B Compaq/DEC are usually happy to provide loaner systems to people porting to Alpha. I don't think this will be much of a problem. > There seems to be some interest in getting the Hurd ported to the L4 > microkernel, especially on Alpha. See: > > http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~disy/L4/ > > Note that L4 doesn't resemble Mach much, so some amount of redesigning > might be in order. Still, it is very micro... The problem with this is (from what I've read in the HURD docs) that it would require a ton of work to get HURD to work with something other then GNU Mach. Is this still the case? > Methods for booting L4 from SRM are described; they may even be of some > use for Mach. The problem with that is not all Alphas have SRM available. Some only have Alpha, ARC, or ARCS BIOS. On Alpha Linux we use ABOOT for booting from SRM and MILO for the others. > I think so. The non-progress seems to me to be mainly caused by the > fact that the Alpha is a little-used architecture. It's just too bloody > expensive............... Not completely true anymore; you can get uniprocessor EV4 systems for around $100 - $300 USD, uni EV5 for around $600 - $1500 USD. The current EV6 generation can be had for < $3000 USD. API (Alpha Processor, Inc.) is selling a uni EV6 developer system for $2999 USD. Their web site (http://www.alpha-processor.com) list that system to include: UP1000 Motherboard with AMD-751 core logic chipset 600 MHz Alpha 264 CPU and 2MB SSRAM cache in Alpha Slot B module 64MB 100MHz SDRAM memory 2x AGP Video card 4.6 GB EIDE HDD CD-ROM and Floppy Disk Drives 400W Power Supply and Tower chassis Keyboard / Mouse Monitor not included Now that's not the most feature rich workstation, but it's not bad considering how fast that 600MHz 21264 really is! When Intel finally starts shipping their IA64 to the general public, I imagine it will be several times more in price. I have already seen benchmarks compairing EV6 to IA64 systems; it doesn't look good for Intel... So the "too expensive" crapola is not the case anymore. I have more to read on Mach before I start anything, but I do plan to start. JMHO, Ron P.S. I am in no way associated with API, other then being a happy customer. P.P.S Flames are sent to /dev/null -- Email: <mailto:rbf@farrer.net> Home: <http://www.farrer.net/~rbf/> Alpha Linux Organization: <http://www.alphalinux.org> Alpha News: <http://www.alphanews.net> Bellingham Linux Users Group: <http://www.blug.org>
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