[gentoo-alpha] Installation on a Digital Personal Workstation 433au

[gentoo-alpha] Installation on a Digital Personal Workstation 433au

[FIVAZ Fabien]

Hi,

I'm a long time user of x86 Gentoo. Yesterday, I managed to access a Digital PWS 433au. So I decided to install Gentoo for Alpha on it, from stage 1. After about 8 hours of compiling, the system works well. I had some troubles with SRM because it auto-booted Digital UNIX. I had to disconnect SCSI disk to gain access to the SRM console (I didn't find any help about how to desactivate auto-boot). But after that, I could boot from the Live CD and install everything. The Tulip network interface driver didn't worked, so I used de4x5, which, after waiting a few minutes, worked. I had a kernel panic on IDE CD detection, so I had to disconnect the CD-ROM (I don't use it, so it does not matter). But does someone has some informations about which driver to use ? I'm now rebuilding the kernel with CMD640 support, hope this will fix the problem.

After that, I'll build xfree. My problem is that the box still has it's original TGA2 graphic card which is not supported by xfree. Can I change the graphic board with *ANY* pci card ? Or do I have to search for a Alpha-specific card ?

Thanks to the Alpha team...

Fabien

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gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list

RE: [gentoo-alpha] Installation on a Digital Personal Workstation 433au

[Donsbach, Jeff]

Fabien wrote:
>  My problem is that the box still has it's original TGA2 graphic card
which is not
> supported by xfree. 

Yes it is. Has been for quite a while. At least it is in other distros
like Red Hat and Debian and the support was submitted back to the Xfree
maintainers (thanks to Jay Estabrook).

> Can I change the graphic board with *ANY* pci card ? Or do I have to
search for a
> Alpha-specific card ?

Matrox Millenium[II], Permedia 2 based boards and ATI Radeon 7500 all
work well and are supported as well. But, you should be able to get your
TGA2 going.

Jeff D

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gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-alpha] Installation on a Digital Personal Workstation 433au

[Aron Griffis]

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FIVAZ Fabien wrote:	[Fri Jan 09 2004, 06:50:22AM EST]
> I'm a long time user of x86 Gentoo. Yesterday, I managed to access a
> Digital PWS 433au. So I decided to install Gentoo for Alpha on it,
> from stage 1. After about 8 hours of compiling, the system works well.
> I had some troubles with SRM because it auto-booted Digital UNIX. I
> had to disconnect SCSI disk to gain access to the SRM console (I
> didn't find any help about how to desactivate auto-boot). 

There are numerous possibilities in this situation:

1. Hold down ctrl-c while the system is coming up.  That will cancel the
   boot.

2. Power up the machine with the halt button pressed in.  That will
   cancel boot.

2. From DU, run "consvar -s auto_action halt" to change the console
   variable.  You might need to "consvar -a" to save the change, I'm not
   sure.

3. From DU, run "halt" (or press the halt button on the machine) to
   return to the console, then do "set auto_action halt"

You get the idea... ;-)

> But after
> that, I could boot from the Live CD and install everything. The Tulip
> network interface driver didn't worked, so I used de4x5, which, after
> waiting a few minutes, worked. I had a kernel panic on IDE CD
> detection, so I had to disconnect the CD-ROM (I don't use it, so it
> does not matter). But does someone has some informations about which
> driver to use ? I'm now rebuilding the kernel with CMD640 support,
> hope this will fix the problem.

I don't know, I only use SCSI.

> After that, I'll build xfree. My problem is that the box still has
> it's original TGA2 graphic card which is not supported by xfree. Can I
> change the graphic board with *ANY* pci card ? Or do I have to search
> for a Alpha-specific card ?

You can use any board, I think, though I haven't tried in Miata.  I'm
surprised that TGA2 isn't supported by xfree.  Are you sure?  I
personally use Elsa GLoria aka Comet aka 3Dlabs GLINT Permedia 3, on 3
heads, and it works well (so long as you don't use Xinerama, though I
haven't checked recent versions).  I also have some machines that use
Permedia 2 with multiple heads.

Aron

-- 
Aron Griffis
Gentoo Linux Developer (alpha / ia64 / ruby / vim)
Key fingerprint = E3B6 8734 C2D6 B5E5 AE76  FB3A 26B1 C5E3 2010 4EB0


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