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Supported Architectures |
These are some of the many systems that NetBSD/alpha supports.
Additionally, NetBSD/alpha systems supports a number of other common devices through the machine-independent drivers.
The Personal Workstations are Digital's PCI-based workstations in small deskside boxes. They use the 21164 EV5 and EV56 versions of the Alpha.
The a versions come with IDE disks for running NT. The au versions come with SCSI disks for running Unix and VMS.
There are 2 generations of the motherboard. The first one had separate versions for the a vs au systems. The second generation (Miata-GL) uses the same board on both systems.
The Miata-GL uses the EV56 chip with byte/word instructions. Earlier versions used the EV5 chips. This description is for the Miata-GL.
The 600au model includes the following hardware:
NetBSD/alpha supports all of the standard system hardware listed above.
NetBSD/alpha also supports other PCI and ISA devices on Personal Workstations, as described on the PCI and ISA hardware support pages.
Known Hardware-specific Bugs
The following are the known bugs in NetBSD/alpha's support of the Personal Workstation:
Supported Hardware
The DEC 3000/300 family was an early low-end series of TURBOchannel-based workstations from Digital Equipment Corporation. (Now, Compaq Computer Corporation.) It includes the following models:
DEC 3000/300-family systems include the following hardware:
NetBSD/alpha also supports other TURBOchannel devices on DEC 3000/300-family systems, as described on the TURBOchannel bus hardware support page.
Known Bugs for the DEC 3000/300 port
Note that not all of the drivers have been thoroughly tested.
Since no frame buffer or keyboard is supported on DEC 3000/300-family systems, you MUST use a serial console when running NetBSD/alpha on them. See your owner's manual for information on how to configure your system to use a serial console.
If you are interested in helping support TURBOchannel framebuffers under NetBSD/alpha, please ask on the list, and check the available hardware.
Supported Hardware
The DEC 3000/500 family was an early, high-end family of TURBOchannel-based workstations from Digital Equipment Corporation. It includes the following models:
as well as several minor variations.
DEC 3000/500-family systems include the following hardware:
NetBSD/alpha also supports other TURBOchannel devices on DEC 3000/500-family systems, as described on the TURBOchannel bus hardware support page.
Note that not all of the drivers have been thoroughly tested.
Since no frame buffer or keyboard is supported on DEC 3000/500-family systems, you MUST use a serial console when running NetBSD/alpha on them. See your owner's manual for information on how to configure your system to use a serial console.
If you are interested in helping support TURBOchannel framebuffers under NetBSD/alpha, please ask on the list, and check the available hardware.
General Description of the AlphaServer 4x00
The AlphaServer 4x00 Systems are Digital's very fast medium server systems. These systems consist of one or two MCBUS main busses, each with memory and multiple CPU modules, plus up to four MCBUS to 64 bit PCI bus bridges (providing access to 4 64 bit PCI slots).
Supported Hardware
AlphaServer 4x00 systems can include the following hardware:
NetBSD/alpha supports all of the standard hardware mentioned above, except:
NetBSD/alpha also supports other PCI, EISA, and ISA devices on AlphaServer 4x00 systems, as described on the PCI, EISA, and ISA bus hardware support pages.
Known Bugs for the AlphaServer 4x00 port:
General Description of the AlphaServer 8x00
The AlphaServer 8x00 Systems are Digital's very high-end systems. Digital's massive Web search engine, AltaVista, runs on one of these. These systems consist of up to nine (9) large system boards connected via the TurboLaser system bus. This bus is a split address and data bus that moves data (64 byte minimum) at about 1.2GB/s. The system boards may either be Processor boards (with up to two CPUs, each with up to 16 MB of Bcache), Memory boards (with boatloads of SIMMS), or I/O boards. I/O boards can have up to four (4) high speed asynchronous bidirectional bus attachments called hoses which connect to different external bus attachments, including connections to twelve (12) slot PCI bus boxes.
Supported Hardware
AlphaServer 8x00 systems can include the following hardware:
NetBSD/alpha supports all of the standard hardware mentioned above, except:
NetBSD/alpha also supports other PCI, EISA, and ISA devices on AlphaServer 8x00 systems, as described on the PCI, EISA, and ISA bus hardware support pages.
Some versions of the 8200 SRM do not initialize PCI bridge chips. This means that some PCI cards (e.g., the Adaptec 3940 and the four port Znyx 100BaseT cards) won't configure.
Known Bugs for the AlphaServer 8x00 port
Supported Hardware
The AlphaStation 200, 250, 255, and 400 are Digital's lower-end PCI-based workstations. They include the following hardware:
NetBSD/alpha supports all of the standard system hardware listed above.
NetBSD/alpha also supports other PCI and ISA devices on AlphaStation 200, 250, 255, and 400 systems, as described on the PCI and ISA bus hardware support pages.
Note that NetBSD has not been tested on many of the individual models in these AlphaStation families, but should run on all of the newer systems. Also note that not all of the drivers have been thoroughly tested.
Supported Hardware
The AlphaStation 500 and 600 systems are Digital's high-end PCI-based workstations. They include the following hardware:
Additionally, the AlphaStation 500 includes:
and the AlphaStation 600 includes:
NetBSD/alpha supports all of the standard system hardware listed above.
NetBSD/alpha also supports other PCI, EISA, and ISA devices on AlphaStation 500 and 600 systems, as described on the PCI, EISA, and ISA bus hardware support pages.
Note that not all of the drivers have been thoroughly tested.
CPU-specific support for AXPpci systems was originally written by Jeffrey Hsu, then substantially rewritten by Chris Demetriou.
Supported Hardware
The AXPpci family is Digital's lowest-end family of PCI-based systems, and includes machines like the UDB and the Multia. AXPpci family systems include the following hardware:
NetBSD/alpha supports all of the standard system hardware listed above.
Note that since SRM is unable to boot from the IDE drive, the NetBSD kernel must be loaded from floppy, SCSI, or the network.
NetBSD/alpha also supports other PCI and ISA devices on AXPpci family systems, as described on the PCI and ISA bus hardware support pages.
Supported Hardware
All EB164-family systems include the following hardware:
EB164 systems include in ISA IDE controller in addition to the hardware found in EB164-family systems.
AlphaPC 164 systems (typically OEM'd by third parties) usually contain:
in addition to the common hardware.
AlphaPC 164SX and 164LX systems use ECC SDRAM memory. EB164 and AlphaPC 164 systems use 72-pin ECC (36 bit, "true parity") FPM SIMMs. The EB164 and PC164 systems can use SIMMs in banks of either four or eight -- for a 128 bit wide or 256 bit wide memory bus -- and installing eight SIMMs at once will yield a significant performance advantage, with memory bandwidth possibly superior to that provided by the SDRAM used by the 164SX and LX systems. It is not possible to use eight SIMMs in two banks of four SIMMs in order to use eight SIMMs which are not identical; to use all eight SIMM slots at all, all eight SIMMs must be identical and the memory bus must be run in 256-bit mode.
AlphaPC 164SX systems include a 21164PC microprocessor instead of the 21164A microprocessor used by the other supported systems. The 21164PC microprocessor uses a different cache architecture than the 21164A microprocessor. The PC164SX motherboard accepts only the 21164PC microprocessor, and the EB164, PC164, and PC164LX motherboards accept only the 21164A microprocessor.
AlphaPC 164LX systems include a 21164A microprocessor but use the same "Pyxis" chipset (and consequently SDRAM memory) as the AlphaPC 164SX systems.
Samsung PC164LX motherboards are essentially the same as Digital PC164LX motherboards except that they have only 32-bit PCI slots; the Digital PC164 systems all offer 64-bit PCI. They can reportedly run the SRM console code needed to run NetBSD. Samsung PC164BX motherboards have the 64-bit PCI slots and are equivalent to the Digital PC164LX boards. Samsung PC164UX motherboards have the 64-bit PCI slots and, additionally, onboard Symbios 53c875 Ultra Wide SCSI and Digital 21143 100baseTX Ethernet. It is not known whether the PC164UX motherboards can run the SRM console code needed to run NetBSD. All the Samsung boards can accept Samsung 21164A microprocessors which are available at higher clock rates than the Digital parts -- up to 800Mhz. The NetBSD developers would be greatly interested in feedback from anyone using NetBSD/alpha with one of the Samsung motherboards.
NetBSD/alpha supports all of the standard system hardware listed above.
NetBSD/alpha also supports other PCI, EISA, and ISA devices on EB164-family systems, as described on the PCI, EISA, and ISA bus hardware support pages.
Note that not all of the drivers have been thoroughly tested.
The SRM console firmware can boot only from NCR/Symbios 53c8XX (in older revisions, only -810 and possibly -825 but not the newer 825A, 860, 875, or 890 parts) cards) or QLogic ISP10XX SCSI adapters, and in some cases (newer firmware revisions on the PC164 boards) from the onboard PCI IDE controller. It is possible to use other supported SCSI or IDE adapters once NetBSD is booted, but you can not boot, for example, from an Adaptec 2940, nor from an ISA IDE controller in an actual EB164 (as opposed to PC164) board. Systems preconfigured for Windows NT may include disk adapters you can't boot from; caveat emptor!
Supported Hardware
All EB64+-family systems include the following hardware:
NetBSD/alpha supports all of the standard system hardware listed above.
NetBSD/alpha also supports other PCI, and ISA devices on EB64+-family systems, as described on the PCI, and ISA bus hardware support pages.
Note that not all of the drivers have been thoroughly tested.
The IDE controller is supported as of NetBSD 1.3.x, but SRM is not able to boot from it, so it is assumed that EB64+-family systems will be used diskless, or with NCR/Symbios 53c810 PCI SCSI boards or SCSI boards using the Qlogic ISP chipset (QLogic ISP10XX or various Digital boards).
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