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<title>OpenBSD/alpha</title>

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<h2>OpenBSD/alpha</h2>

<hr>

<h3><font color=#0000e0><strong>History and Status:</strong></font></h3>

<h3><font color="#0000e0"><strong>History and Status:</strong></font></h3>

<p>

<p>The OpenBSD/alpha port was begun in the summer of 1996 by using

The alpha port was derived from the NetBSD/alpha port written by Chris

code from the NetBSD/alpha port which was begun by Chris Demetriou

Demetriou <cgd@netbsd.org>. Unfortunately we cannot track it closely

<cgd@netbsd.org> in 1994. After the original OpenBSD port, some

anymore as some copyright issues prevent us, check our

<a href=policy.html>policy</a> page for details.

Regardless, work on the alpha port continued and many fixes were made.

There have been a few efforts to keep this port modern,

While we were making fixes, NetBSD continued to make improvements to

which also includes many userland 64 bit problems which we have tracked down

the alpha port which we were unfortunately unable to use. Over time,

and made fixes to. Many of the improvements mentioned below are not found

because of a lack of programmer resources and the inability to use

in NetBSD, but you should do your own research to decide which those are.

NetBSD code, hardware and software support became very outdated. This

<p>

caused the 2.5 and 2.6 releases of alpha to have few kernel

Initially the reason for existence of this port was to provide the OpenBSD

enhancements. As a result of its becoming so stale, alpha was not

operating system to alpha users, i.e. no special effort was put in to develop

included in the 2.7 release.</p>

the port in the machine dependent parts. The main thing that got done was to

ensure that all the tools needed to build a full system was included in the

<p>Recently, there has been a great deal of interest in bringing the

tree, as well as updated with the changes Chris distributed in a separate

port up to date. This coupled with the fact that NetBSD changed the

alpha toolchain package.

license on its alpha code so that there are no longer copyright issues

<p>

has lead to an effort to bring the alpha port back up. (For details on

Today, more developers have alpha machines, and we are seeing interest in

why we were not able to keep tracking the NetBSD code, check our <a

a more active port, but there still is very little active development going

href=policy.html>policy</a> page.)</p>

on. This fact has so far led to:

<p>There is currently no maintainer for the alpha port. Technical

discussion about the alpha port should be directed to <a

href="mailto:alpha@openbsd.org"><alpha@openbsd.org></a>. If you

are at all interested in development of the alpha port, please send

inquiries to this address. If you are interested in the job of alpha

port maintainer, help out the project for a while and step up to the

job.</p>

<h3><font color=#0000e0><strong>Projects (in no particular order):

</strong></font></h3>

<ul>

<li>A large-scale attack at fixing remaining 64-bit 'long' vs 'int'

<li>Bring the alpha kernel up to date with what NetBSD has.

problems in the entire userland source tree. Most of these

<li>New Binutils to support ELF object file format. (gives shared libs)

have been fixed, and new 64-bit problems are only rarely found.

<li>New bootblocks to support ELF.

<li>Adaptation of the if_ed ethernet driver.

<li>Up to date compat_osf1.

<li>Parsing of i386 MBR & disklabels.

<li>DDB (kernel debugger) (disassembler, tracebacks, single stepping).

<li>IDE & ATAPI support.

<li>Easy installation via floppy.

<li>Fixed VGA workstation console driver. Added "stand-out" (highlight) to it too.

</ul>

<h3><font color=#0000e0><strong>Projects (in no particular order):</strong></font></h3>

<ul>

<li>ISA DMA (enables many common PC peripherals to be used)

<li>floppy support (requires ISA DMA).

<li>ELF object file format (gives shared libs)

<li>egcs fixes for the Ramdisk

</ul>

<p>

So far <a href="http://www.appli.se/niklas/">Niklas Hallqvist</a>

<a href=mailto:niklas@openbsd.org><niklas@openbsd.org></a> has been

trying to keep the port alive, but despite more people having alpha,

the port is barely alive and not too actively maintained.

</p>

<h3><font color=#0000e0><strong>Supported Hardware:</strong></font></h3>

<p>Because of the changes that are currently being made to alpha, the

currently supported hardware is in flux. To the best of our

knowledge, the following hardware is still supported, but this could

change at any time.</p>

<ul>

<li><b>DEC 3000/[3456789]00 series with the following peripherals:</b>

<ul>

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<ul>

<li> Built-in serial ports.

<li> Built-in LANCE ethernet.

<li> Built-in SCSI chips (53c[f]94), though both may not work at the same time.

<li> Built-in SCSI chips (53c[f]94), though both may not work at

</ul>

the same time.

</ul>

<li> Things that may work but haven't been tested:

<ul>

<li> TurboChannel option slot LANCE (PMAD-A).

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</ul>

<li><b> AlphaStation {200,250,255,400,500}, AXPpci,<br>

Multia (though many Multias have experienced infant mortality or develop problems)<br>

Multia (though many Multias have experienced infant mortality or

develop problems)<br>

Systems using the following peripherals:</b>

<ul>

<li> Supported hardware:

<ul>

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<li> Built-in ns16550 serial ports.

<li> DC21040-based ethernet (built-in or PCI board).

<li> DC21140-based PCI ethernet boards.

<li> DC21050-based PCI-PCI bridges (though other types of PCI-PCI bridges should work).

<li> DC21050-based PCI-PCI bridges (though other types of PCI-PCI

bridges should work).

<li> PCI VGA video boards.

<li> ISA VGA boards.

<li> DEC ZLXp-E1 (DC21030-based, "TGA") video boards.

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<li> Lite-On PNIC (82c168, 82c169) based ethernet cards.

<li> Keyboard.

<li> PS/2-style mice.

<li> IDE controllers (including the built-in IDE controller on some machines).

<li> IDE controllers (including the built-in IDE controller on

some machines).

<li> Intel Etherexpress Pro/100B cards.

<li> Cyclades ISA multiport serial cards.

<li> Adaptec 2940 based scsi boards.

</ul>

<li> Things that may work but haven't been tested:

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<li> Things that are *not* supported at this time:

<ul>

<li> Sound hardware (including Windows Sound System built-in on some machines).

<li> Sound hardware (including Windows Sound System built-in on

some machines).

<li> DEC ZLXp-E2 and ZLXp-E3 PCI video boards.

<li> The built-in scsi controller on the AlphaStation 600.

<li> PCI and ISA boards not listed above.

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<li><b>At this time none of the following systems are supported:</b>

<ul>

<li> DECpc AXP 150 systems (EISA-bus PC-like systems)

<li> Alpha "server" systems (other than perhaps the AlphaServer 400, which might be an AlphaStation 400 in disguise).

<li> Alpha "server" systems (other than perhaps the AlphaServer 400,

<li> Multiprocessor Alpha systems

which might be an AlphaStation 400 in disguise).

<li> Multiprocessor alpha systems

<li> EB164, PC164, PC164[LSR]X

<li> Digital Personal Workstation (Miata) systems

<li> 21264 based systems

<li> API (Alpha Processor, Inc.) systems

</ul>

<h3><font color=#0000e0><strong>Snapshots:</strong></font></h3>

<p>

OpenBSD/alpha saw its first proper release in OpenBSD 2.1 and is since

<p>While we are bringing the alpha port back to life snapshots will be

then integral part of the OpenBSD releases. Between the releases also

unpredictable an sporadic at best. If you are interested in helping

snapshots are provided from time to time.

out, we encourage you to grab a snapshot, sync with -current and dig

</p>

in!</p>

<hr>