I just got an older computer for free and have very little Unix / Linux experience. After some research, I found that it is:

AlphaPC 164 (no LX or SX)
running a Pentium 450
256meg ram
2 scsi drives with a scsi controller card

I don't have any passwords to the scsi drives and would like to format them. My problem is that the Unix (SRM I assume) that boots up when I turn on the power shows ">>>" and has no fdisk or mount ability.

show dev lists the floppy, CDROM, and SCSI drives, but I can't access them with "ls". I've tried to make boot disks using MiLinux, RamWrite, and tomsrtbt (all using DOS). Then I go back to the ">>>" prompt and type "boot dva0" for my floppy and get a bootstrap failure "block 0 is not a valid boot block." How can that be? I just created a boot disk? Can anyone help?

Are you certain this has an Intel processor, or is it an actual Alpha, that's an entirely different processor architecture then Intel's x86. This is like a Mac PPC to an Intel/AMD PC. toms and MiLinux are built for x86, so if this is actually an alpha, you're looking for an OS that'll run on an alpha. There are certain flavors of Linux, a few of the BSDs, HP-UX of course... and an old, now unsupported, windows NT.

Cheers,

Finegan

Is there any way to tell? The heatsink is glued to the processor.

I don't really know, I've never actually seen an Alpha (logged into them a lot, but not seen one). Big Horking heatsink I can tell you, but mostly from pictures...

What does its boot prompt say, exactly? If there's a lot to the boot process, just take down proper nouns.

Cheers,

Finegan

Doesn't have much of a boot up actually. When I turn it on:

eb.ea.e9.e8.e7

Digital AlphaPC 164 467Mhz console V5.5-1 Jul 14,1999 12:37:45
>>>

That's pretty much it. I can type init and it shows that I'm running PBXGB VGA BIOS, but not much more.

Yep, that's a DEC alpha alright. A pretty fast one too, you can usually punt those for a bit on E-bay. Hmmm... the old WindowsNT for Alpha is a little hard to find, plus normal WinNT apps won't run on it. All the components except the processor are normal PC gear, so a normal PCI nic will work in it, etc. Its a beast of a machine, 64-bit, little endian... a tank actually.

RedHat did an Alpha release of 7.2, which is quite a bit old now, about 2 years and change.

SuSe did an Alpha release of 8.1, which is only about six or seven months old.

If you're new to Linux, and actually want to give it a whirl, I recommend trying SuSe. As far as I can tell, it would be a net install. SuSe makes this really, really easy. Download the ISO from:

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/supplementary/8.1/boot

Burn that using... Roxio or something, check the help menu at the alpha's boot prompt... usually with a BIOS like that, the command "help" brings up something.

Its probably something simple, like: boot cdrom

Post back if you get stuck.

Cheers,

Finegan

That worked to get me to the SuSe Setup screen I'll see where I can go from there. Thanks a ton!

O.k. I burned the boot.iso with roxio
at >>> I input "boot dqa"
booted me into the setup screen with an error
"cannot find the image - check the directory specification"
after the error it brought me to the setup screen -- settings-- system info -- Kernel Modules -- Start Installation / system

I clicked Start Installation
It gave me three choices all of which I tried
1. Start Install --> CDRom or Hard Disk
CD rom attempts to mount then says "Make sure Cd1 is in the drive" then it gives me the same error that I got at startup "cannot find the image"
Hard disk asks me to enter the partition (i.e. /dev/sda1) I tried everything I could find -- sda1 to sda7, dka0 and dka100 (the two bios identified scsi drive names. anything that looked at all like a drive/root/partition name that I could find everywhere. Didn't work.
2. Boot install still asked me for the root directory (again I tried everything / root / etc.
3. Start Rescue
Now this one worked! However, it dumps me out to ->
Login:
Is there any way that I can somehow get past this login or format the scsi drives? I am not hooked up to a network on the Alpha so I can't ftp from anywhere directly to the computer, only CD or floppy.

I have plenty of info on the system now. The CD rom, floppy, and scsi drives as well as the scsi driver is all being recognized.

Sorry the message is so long. Thanks for the help so far.

Hrmm, sorry man, I kinda assumed a network, SuSe is the distro that doesn't give out ISOs for free... actually they do, for they're every 1 of 3 ppc and sparc releases, but as the Alpha release is just sort of a hobby for some of the SuSe guys, its a little more clumpy. It expects you to be able to assemble the CD ISOs on your own, copy all of the relevant media to a drive, or do a net install... which is the only one of the three that is at all easy. That boot ISO is just to get to one of those 3 options, hence the image being only 30mb. The Full Blown horking SuSe install can get up to 5Gb!!! I largely avoid the distro, but they do odd architectures like the alpha, seemingly for kicks too... The easiest way really is going to be a net install, or to crate that kid somewhere with a pimp network.

Cheers,

Finegan

Thanks. I'll see if I can get a network running on it or give RedHat 7.2 a try. If that doesn't work, wanna buy an Alpha with two 2Gig SCSIs for cheap??? haha

Linux 7.2 Alpha!! Works like a charm! Now I just have to figure out how to use it. Thanks for the tips.

Wow, good luck man!

Cheers,

Finegan