Hi, I'm Samuel Hadid and I'm working on Alpha Servers GS80, and some other. The thing is, I'm starting from zero and so I would like to know the advantages of configuring a treating these systems with Linux.
I would really appreciate your help. Thank you.

The Alpha was an extraordinary processor and it is a shame it didn't get the chance to evolve further. Alpha is a capable platform if a bit dated now.

The biggest advantage on putting Linux on an Alpha is one of cost and availability of the native OS for those servers. However, you may find a similar availability problem in getting an up to date port of Linux for Alpha. That is speculation on my part as I've not used an Alpha based system in some time, nor to be honest kept up on the ports.

I am not sure there was ever a native OS for alpha's. There are many ports available and I agree that they were way ahead of their time. We have many DEC systems still in use. Rock solid and of course we paid huge prices for them.

I can't say there is an advantage to use linux.

Massive specs for commercial uses. Telecom and other specialized users would want this.

"
Up to eight 1.224 GHz Alpha processors
Up to 64 GB of ECC memory
Over 12GB/s aggregate internal bandwidth
16 MB ECC memory onboard cache per CPU
Up to 56 PCI slots on 16 PCI buses
Up to two system partitions and mixed CPU speeds
Complete "lights out" system management
Tru64 UNIX, OpenVMS and Linux Advanced Developers Kit support
"

As you can see some of the specs are going out of date.

I really appreciate your answers and concerns. It is true that it was a great machine, but thanks to that age topic that we can work on. I've been making some researches and I've found enough good reasons to use Linux on the Alphas; the thing now is that we need an OS with SAN and optical fiber. We're between Open VMS, Tru64 and Linux.
Does anyone knows if CentOS (Linux/Alpha), Debian Lenny or Gentoo are compatible to those need?
Have you any advices?
Thanks again.
Cordially Samuel Hadid.