Hi List,
Last week, I asked about using Digital Unix on generic Alpha motherboards.
I got some great replies from: (in alphabetical order)
Graham Allan
Tom Blinn
Arno Hahma
Thomas Leitner Email addresses
David Monroe on request
E Notari
Alan Rollow
Liz Rowe
Dan Roscigno
Here's my original question:
Has anybody had any success installing Digital Unix on generic
Alpha motherboards? I'm thinking of, say, 164LX Digital and
Samsung motherboards and 164UX and 164BX Samsung motherboards.
In particular are/were you happy with the setup and what resistance,
if any, did you encounter from Digital in trying to licence the OS
from them?
All war stories welcome. Of course, I'll summarise.
First of all, getting 4.0D running on a Digital 164LX motherboard is no
problem, apparently. One can even buy a version with the SRM firmware and
a Digital Unix licence and as far as I can tell, if one buys a non-DU
version of the motherboard (ie. Linux or NT) one can still licence the
SRM and DU for the board. Getting one's hands on DU can be tricky as
Digital, at least here in Belfast, would *much* rather sell you a complete
Alpha system.
Incidentally, I speak of the SRM licence and DU licence separately, whereas
this is probably a mistake. One without the other would be either illegal or
pointless and, anyway, it seems that they are the same thing!
One can run Digital Unix 4.0B, at a push, on the Digital 164LX motherboard,
but one needs 4.0D for the Digital 164SX motherboard.
Of course, not only must one's motherboard be DU-licensed and -compatible,
but one must choose peripherals and card which are compatible with DU.
Arno Hahma was most instructive on this point. Here is what he said:
CD-ROM drive is the caveat. Be sure to get some model from DEC or
Toshiba. Nothing else will work. And the drive has to be SCSI, of
course. I have a Toshiba XM-5310 8x and it works very well.
SCSI-controllers are easier, just get NCR SCSI SC-200:s by Asustek,
they'll work fine. Networking is easy as well. SMC cards with DEC
chipsets work fine, such as SMC Etherpower 10/100 or 10/10.
Display adapters are a bit limited, S3 Trio64, ATI Mach 64 (the old
one, not the ones with 3D-properties), DEC 3D- and 4D-series. If you
need 24-bit depth, the DEC 4D series (a lot of $$$$$!) is your only
possibility. If 8-bit depth suffices, then get an el-cheapo S3 Trio64.
Oh, and do not install more than 256 MB of memory at the install
stage. It won't work. Upgrade to more than 256 MB only after initial
install. Also be sure to download and install the latest SRM console
software, before starting to install DU.
One more hint: you can get a 533 MHz CPU and clock it to 600 MHz. They
are the very same chips, the 600 MHz units just have been factory
tested, the 533 MHz has not. Also, make sure your memory chips are
good quality. Most of the problems with Alpha boards come from
defective RAM - the boards are _really_ picky about RAM. The DIMMs for
the LX board really need to support 100 MHz bandwidth, or they will not
work.
Now, when it comes to running DU on Samsung motherboards, such as their
164UX and 164BX boards, there are a number of obstacles. First, the
availability of the SRM firmware. My understanding is that these are quite
unique to each motherboard and so one couldn't use, say, a 164LX SRM on
a 164UX motherboard. Even if one _technically_ could, I shouldn't think
that Digital would be keen to license _their_ SRM firmware on _Samsung's_
motherboards.
Second, I am told that there is no chance of Samsung ever producing a
DU-compatible SRM as it simply isn't worth their while. I am also told that
they *are* currently testing an SRM upgrade that will allow one (technically)
to run DU on Samsung boards. An interesting contradiction, don't you think?
A third-party (ie. from neither Digital nor Samsung) DU-compatible SRM
may also be a possibility some day. However, even with a DU-compatible
Samsung-produced SRM, one may find that one doesn't have a licence to
run DU over such an SRM.
Third, Graham Allan pointed out that even with a licence to run DU on
a hypothetical 3rd party SRM on a Samsung motherboard, Digital in the US
won't allow machines based upon such boards to participate in their
campus licence programs! I'm unsure what the situation is here in the UK
but I imagine it to be the same. Either way, there are several `gotchas'
between drooling over a Samsung motherboard and successfully and legally
running DU on it! :-)
On a final note, I think it is a shame that I cannot go out and buy a
copy of DU to install on an arbitrary computer, much like I could with
Windows NT, if I were so inclined. Interestingly, since the only reason
_we_ want DU on Alpha hardware is so we can run Digital's (excellent)
Fortran 90 compiler, as soon as a decent (not necessarily Digital)
Linux/Alpha f90 compiler becomes available, DU and all its attendant
licensing woes will be but a distant memory. ;-)
Again, many many thanks to my respondents for shedding some light on the
subject of DU licensing and using DU on clone motherboards.
This list is great.
Thanks,
Wesley Darlington,
Dept of Applied Maths, No `Office 97' documents please.
Queen's University of Belfast. Free the X11R6 Four!
(01232) T 273911 F 239182
Received on Sun Jun 07 1998 - 19:33:06 NZST