[plug] Linux on an Alpha?

[Peter Wright]

On Wed, May 10, 2000 at 07:58:01AM +0800, Bennett, Phillip wrote:
> At work I have access to several unused Alpha 3000 model 800s.
                                   ^^^^^^
You lucky bastard! :-)

> Does anyone know if it's possible to run linux on these? I would
> like to get one of these working as a file server or XWindows server
> for a bit of personal experience.  I have been told that they will
> NOT run linux.  Can anyone confirm or deny this?  Any suggestions on
> what they CAN do would be greatly appreciated.

I won't pretend to be particularly knowledgeable in this area, but I
do know that Debian and Redhat have an Alpha release, so I think it
should run on _some_ Alphas at least. :)

Have a look at http://www.alphalinux.org/  (if you can get it to load,
it's being pretty unresponsive to me at the moment), I suspect the FAQ
there should answer most if not all of your questions.

Another couple of pages (which I got by putting in "linux" and "alpha"
on Google :) - 

http://www.azstarnet.com/~axplinux/

http://www.unix-ag.org/Linux-Alpha/

> I have been told that they will NOT run linux. 

Were you told this by someone who knows what they're talking about...? :)

It might be if they're an older model that they won't easily run
linux... however, you might still be able to get either NetBSD or
OpenBSD running on them. 

http://www.netbsd.org/
http://www.openbsd.org/

> TIA
> Phil

Hope that helps,

Pete.
-- 
http://cygnus.uwa.edu.au/~pete/

--
If an elephant is left tied to a parking meter, the parking fee has to be paid
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