*BSD News Article 23141


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From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development
Subject: Re: NetBSD for Alpha (?)
Date: 1 Nov 1993 21:39:57 GMT
Organization: Weber State University, Ogden, UT
Lines: 51
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <2b3vnd$rmr@u.cc.utah.edu>
References: <kordas.46.2CD2A321@snowhite.eeap.cwru.edu> <2aub0o$4hq@nntp.ucs.ubc.ca>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.weber.edu
Keywords: BSD, DEC, ALPHA

In article <2aub0o$4hq@nntp.ucs.ubc.ca> felawka@sitka.triumf.ca (Larry Felawka) writes:
>In article <kordas.46.2CD2A321@snowhite.eeap.cwru.edu> kordas@snowhite.eeap.cwru.edu (Timothy Kordas) writes:
> >Has anyone seen a publically available BSD for Alpha ?
> >
> >
> >It would be a realy shame to run VMS on a nice new machine...:)
>
>I agree.  But why not run DEC's Unix-like OSF1?  It runs great (for a new OS).

A number of us people associated with WSU have been threatening to do this
port, to the point of merging the NetBSD/FreeBSD source trees.  It should
actually be a *very* easy port for the AXP 150, which is an EISA machine,
although there needs to be some more distinction made in the compilation
directories for the sources (differentiation is based on processer, and
bus differentiation should be a different category from processer and is
not in the current NetBSD tree).

There is one individual who has actually got the instruction rescheduling
code into an assembler and is on the way to having a working crosscompilation
environment.

The fact that the AXP 150 uses an EISA SCSI controller that is already
supported (the AHA1742) and a Compaq Qvision SVGA helps, although the
PS/2 keyboard and mouse might give problems, as might the default ethernet
adapter.

The two big obstacles in the way right now are:

1)	I can't spend time on it without a release that the resulting code
	could be redistributed.  There is some frustrating paperwork to go
	through with my employer over this (I'm working on it, I'm working
	on it).

2)	DEC isn't recognizing the people involved as developers, for some
	reason, and the price tag on the machines needed is a bit high
	for some of the people to afford for entertainment.  My employer
	can't pass developers discounts on except for PC and MAC hardware
	from certain sellers, and since none of use are really on the
	buying track at WSU, we can't get the educational discounts for
	what would amount to personal machines.

If you want contact information for the other individual, I can furnish
it; my hands have been tied pretty much as far as any actual coding, so
he's the one to talk to.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.