OpenBSD/alpha
OpenBSD/alpha runs on a large set of the alpha computers manufactured by
Digital (then Compaq, now Hewlett-Packard).
A mailing list dedicated to the OpenBSD/alpha port is available at
alpha@openbsd.org.
To join the OpenBSD/alpha mailing list, send a message body of "subscribe
alpha" to majordomo@openbsd.org.
Please be sure to check our mailing list policy before
subscribing.
There is currently no maintainer for the alpha port.
Technical discussion about the alpha port should be directed to the
alpha@openbsd.org mailing list.
If you are interested in the job of alpha port maintainer, help out the project
for a while and step up to the job.
Table of contents
History:
The OpenBSD/alpha port was started in the summer of 1996 by using code
from the NetBSD/alpha port which was started by
Chris Demetriou in 1994.
After the original OpenBSD port, some
copyright issues prevented OpenBSD from tracking the NetBSD code.
Regardless, work on the alpha port continued and many fixes were made.
Meanwhile, NetBSD continued to make improvements to the
alpha port which we were unfortunately unable to use. Over time,
because of a lack of programmer resources and the inability to use
NetBSD code, hardware and software support became very outdated. This
caused the 2.5 and 2.6 releases of alpha to have few kernel
enhancements. As a result of its becoming so stale, there was no
OpenBSD/alpha port included in the 2.7 and 2.8 releases.
Shortly after OpenBSD 2.8 was released, there has been a great deal of
interest in bringing the port up to date. This, coupled with the fact
that NetBSD changed the license on its alpha code so that there were no
longer copyright issues has lead to an effort to bring the alpha port
back up. (For details on why we were not able to keep tracking the
NetBSD code, check our policy page.)
Nathan Binkert, Art Grabowski, Niklas Hallqvist and Eric Jackson, with
the help of a few others, eventually brought the port in good shape
again, and starting with the 2.9 release OpenBSD/alpha is a supported
OpenBSD port again.
Current status:
Currently, all the hardware listed in the
supported hardware section below boots
multi-user, and supports enough of the on-board devices to be generally
usable, unless specified otherwise.
A large set of PCI cards also work reliably, while ISA devices support has
limitations.
X11 is supported on TGA cards, as well as a few regular PCI
cards on newer (BWX enabled) machines, of which the following have been tested:
- 3DFX Interactive Banshee
- 3DLabs Permedia 2 (8, 15, 16 and 24 bits depth)
- ATI Rage Pro (works with 'Option "NoAccel"')
- ATI Rage 128
- Cirrus Logic CL5430 (works with 'Option "NoAccel"')
- Cirrus Logic GD5446 (8, 16 and 24 bits depth)
- Matrox MGA 2064 (8, 16 and 24 bits depth, works with 'Option "NoInt10"')
More cards will be supported as time and resources permits.
Projects (in no particular order):
- Testing more platforms and peripherals, to find what issues are
remaining and improve overall stability
- Improve port-specific documentation
- Support recent OSF/1 binaries and shared libraries in compatibility mode
- Support DMA for ISA devices
- Floppy support (requires working ISA DMA first)
- Fix 64-bit issues in the non-working PCI drivers
- Improve X11 support
- Make X11 work on PCI VGA cards for machines without BWX
Supported hardware:
To the best of our knowledge, the following hardware is supported, but there
might be occasional breakage on some models.
Since there are many models and combinations that have not been tested,
we would appreciate very much if you told us about things that work and
do not work.
To help us keep track of what hardware people use, please mail your dmesg to
dmesg@openbsd.org.
If there are things that do not work, please file a bug report using
sendbug(1).
Supported Machines:
- 264DP, CS20, DS10, DS20, XP900, XP1000, and other EV6 machines using the
Tsunami chipset
(Only one processor will be used on multiprocessor
models)
- Supported devices:
- Built-in serial
(com)
and parallel
(lpt)
ports.
- Built-in DEC21143
(de)
or Intel i8255x-based
(fxp)
ethernet.
- Built-in ISP
(isp)
or Adaptec
(ahc) SCSI controller.
- Built-in IDE controller
(pciide).
- Built-in USB
(usb).
- Most PCI devices (see below).
- Some ISA devices (see below).
- Unsupported devices:
- Floppy drive.
- ISA devices that require DMA operation.
- API UP1000, UP2000, and UP2000+ and other EV6 machines using the Irongate
chipset
- Supported devices:
- Built-in serial
(com)
and parallel
(lpt)
ports.
- Built-in DEC21040
(de)
ethernet.
- Built-in IDE controller
(pciide).
- Unsupported devices:
- Floppy drive.
- ISA devices that require DMA operation.
- Digital Personal Workstation (Miata)
- Supported devices:
- Built-in serial
(com)
and parallel
(lpt)
ports.
- Built-in DEC21043
(de)
ethernet.
- Built-in ISP SCSI
(isp),
when present (i.e. on au models).
- Built-in IDE controller
(pciide).
- Most PCI devices (see below).
- Some ISA devices (see below).
- Unsupported devices:
- Floppy drive.
- Built-in audio.
- ISA devices that require DMA operation.
- EB164 based machines (including PC164, 164SX, 164LX, but NOT the
164UX)
- Supported devices:
- Built-in serial
(com)
and parallel
(lpt)
ports.
- Built-in PCI IDE controller
(pciide),
when present.
- Most PCI devices (see below).
- Some ISA devices (see below).
- Unsupported devices:
- Floppy drive.
- ISA IDE controller
(wdc)
on the EB164.
- ISA devices that require DMA operation.
- AlphaServer 800, 1000, 1000A, 1200 and 4100
- Supported devices:
- Built-in serial
(com)
and parallel
(lpt)
ports.
- Built-in DEC21040
(de)
ethernet.
- Built-in ISP SCSI
(isp).
- Most PCI devices (see below).
- Some ISA and EISA devices (see below).
- Unsupported devices:
- Floppy drive.
- ISA and EISA devices that require DMA operation.
- AlphaStation 500 and 600
- Supported devices:
- Built-in serial
(com)
and parallel
(lpt)
ports.
- Built-in DEC21040
(de)
ethernet.
- Built-in ISP SCSI
(isp).
- Most PCI devices (see below).
- Some ISA and EISA devices (see below).
- Unsupported devices:
- Floppy drive.
- Built-in audio.
- ISA and EISA devices that require DMA operation.
- AlphaStation 200, 250, 255 and 400
- Supported devices:
- Built-in serial
(com)
and parallel
(lpt)
ports.
- Built-in DEC21040
(de)
ethernet.
- Built-in ISP SCSI
(isp).
- Most PCI devices (see below).
- Some ISA devices (see below).
- Unsupported devices:
- Floppy drive.
- Built-in audio.
- ISA devices that require DMA operation.
- AXPpci based machines (including ``Noname'', UDB, Multia)
- Supported devices:
- Built-in serial
(com)
and parallel
(lpt)
ports.
- Built-in DEC21040
(de)
ethernet.
- Built-in 53C810 SCSI
(siop)
- Built-in IDE controller
(pciide),
but will not boot from it.
- Most PCI devices (see below).
- Some ISA devices (see below).
- Unsupported devices:
- Floppy drive.
- ISA devices that require DMA operation.
- DEC 3000 models 300{,L,X,LX}
- Supported devices:
- Built-in serial ports (console on serial port)
(scc).
- Built-in LANCE ethernet
(le).
- Built-in SCSI (53C94)
(asc).
- TURBOchannel LANCE ethernet cards (PMAD-A)
(le).
- TURBOchannel SCSI (53C94) (PMAZ-A)
(asc).
- TURBOchannel DEFTA FDDI cards (PMAF-FA)
(fta).
- Unsupported devices:
- Built-in ISDN/audio chip.
- Built-in framebuffer.
- Other TURBOchannel cards.
- DEC 3000 models 400,500,500X,600,700,800,900
- Supported devices:
- Built-in serial ports (console on serial port)
(scc).
- Built-in LANCE ethernet
(le).
- Built-in SCSI (53C94 or 53CF94-2)
(asc).
- TURBOchannel LANCE ethernet cards (PMAD-A)
(le).
- TURBOchannel SCSI (53C94) (PMAZ-A)
(asc).
- TURBOchannel DEFTA FDDI cards (PMAF-FA)
(fta).
- Unsupported devices:
- Built-in ISDN/audio chip.
- Built-in framebuffer.
- Other TURBOchannel cards.
- At this time none of the following systems are supported:
- DECpc AXP150 (2000/300) systems (EISA-bus PC-like systems)
- AlphaServer systems, other than model 400, which seem to
be disguised AlphaStation machines.
- Alpha XL systems. (No SRM)
- DEC 4000, 7000, and 10000 systems (FutureBus+ and XMIBus based).
- EB64+ based systems.
- Samsung 164BX/UX. (No SRM)
- Multiprocessor Alpha systems (though they will run fine using one
processor only, if the model is listed as supported above).
- VME Alpha systems.
Supported Peripherals:
Untested Peripherals:
The following peripherals are compiled into the system, but are not
known to work. It's our best guess that they do, but any feedback is
appreciated.
- SCSI Host Adapters (*)
- AdvanSys ABP940UW, ASB3940UW-00, ASB3940U2W-00 and ASB3950U160 PCI
SCSI controllers. (adw)
- RAID and Cache Controllers (*)
- DPT SmartCache and SmartRaid III/IV PCI/EISA adapters (dpt)
- ICP-Vortex and Intel GDT series (gdt)
- Serial Ports (*)
- Cyclades PCI Cyclom-{4, 8, 16}Y serial boards (cy)
- Ethernet Adapters
- 3Com 3c503 (ec) (*)
- 3Com 3c509, 3c579, and 3c59x (ep) (*) (disabling PnP on 3c509B is recommended)
- ADMtek AN986-based USB adapters (aue), including: (*)
- 3Com 3c460b
- Abocom UFE1000
- Abocom DSB650TX
- Accton USB320-EC
- Accton SpeedStream Ethernet
- Admtek Pegasus
- Admtek Pegasus II
- AEI USB Fast Ethernet
- Allied Telesyn AT-USB100
- ATEN UC-110T
- Belkin USB to LAN
- Billionton Systems USB100
- Billionton Systems USB100EL
- Billionton Systems USB100LP
- Billionton Systems USBE100
- Corega FEther USB-TX
- Corega FEther USB-TXS
- D-Link DSB-650
- D-Link DSB-650TX
- D-Link DSB-650TX-PNA
- ELCON Systemtechnik Goldpfeil P-LAN
- Elecom LD-USB/TX
- Elecom LD-USBL/TX
- Elsa Microlink USB2Ethernet
- GIGABYTE GN-BR402W
- Hawking UF100
- HP HN210E
- I/O DATA USB ETTX
- Kingston KNU101TX
- Laneed LD-USBL/TX
- Linksys USB100TX
- Linksys USB100H1
- Linksys USB10T
- Linksys USB10TA
- Linksys USB10TX
- Melco Inc. LUA-TX
- Melco Inc. LUA2-TX
- Microsoft MN110
- Mobility EasiDock Ethernet
- Netgear FA101
- Omnidirectional Control Technology USB TO Ethernet
- Siemens SpeedStream USB
- Smartbridges smartNIC 2
- SMC 2202USB/ETH
- SMC 2206USB/ETH
- SOHOware NUB100
- SOHOware NUB110
- CATC USB-EL1210A-based USB adapters (cue), including: (*)
- Belkin F5U111
- CATC Netmate and Netmate II
- SmartBridges SmartLink
- Kawasaki LSI KL5KUSB101B-based USB adapters (kue), including: (*)
- 3Com 3c19250
- 3Com 3c460 HomeConnect
- AboCom Systems URE450 Ethernet
- ADS Technologies USB-10BT
- Aox USB101
- Asante USB to Ethernet
- ATen DSB-650C
- ATen UC10T
- Corega USB-T
- D-Link DSB-650C
- Entrega NET-USB-E45
- I/O Data USB-ET/T
- Jaton USB XpressNet
- Kawasaki USB101
- Kingston Ethernet
- Linksys USB10T
- Mobility Ethernet
- Netgear EA101
- Peracom USB
- Portgear Ethernet
- Portsmith Express Ethernet
- Psion Dacom Gold Port Ethernet
- Shark Pocket Adapter
- Silicom U2E
- SMC 2102USB
- SMC 2104USB
- Realtek RTL8150L based USB adapters (url), including:
(*)
- Abocom RTL8151
- GreenHouse GH-USB100B
- GreenHouse GH-USB100B with HomePNA
- Linksys USB100M
- Longshine LCS-8138TX
- Melco Inc. LUA-KTX
- Micronet SP128AR
- SMC 2208USB/ETH
- TRENDnet TU-ET100C
- Zt USB10/100
- SMC/WD 8003, 8013, and the SMC "Elite16" ISA boards (we) (*)
- Sundance ST201-based PCI adapters (ste), including: (*)
- D-Link DFE-550TX
- D-Link DFE-580TX
- Encore ENL832-TX-ICNT 10/100 M PCI
- Texas Instruments ThunderLAN PCI adapters (tl), including: (*)
- Compaq Netelligent PCI Adapters
- Compaq NetFlex 3/P
- Compaq Deskpro integrated adapter
- Compaq Prosignia integrated adapter
- Olicom OC2135, OC2183, OC2325, OC2326
- Racore 8165 and 8148
- TI ThunderLAN adapters
- Winbond W89C840F-based adapters (wb), including: (*)
- TRENDnet TE100-PCIE
- Compex RL100-ATX 10/100
- ATM Adapters (*)
- Efficient Networks EN-155 and Adaptec ANA-590x ATM interfaces
(en)
- FDDI Adapters (*)
- Digital DEFEA EISA FDDI adapters (fea)
- Sound Devices (-)
- C-Media CMI8[37]38 (cmpci)
- ESS Solo-1 PCI AudioDrive (eso)
- Forte Media FM801 audio (fms)
- VIA VT8233, VT8235 and VT8237 AC'97 audio (auvia)
- S3 SonicVibes (sv)
(*)
Drivers for hardware marked with (*) are not included on the
installation floppies, but are available in the cd-rom installation
kernel as well as the GENERIC kernel that will be installed.
(-)
Drivers for hardware marked with (-) are not available on the
installation floppies, or the cd-rom installation kernel, but are
available in the GENERIC kernel that will be installed.
Getting and installing OpenBSD/alpha:
The latest supported OpenBSD/alpha release is
OpenBSD 4.2.
Here are the
OpenBSD/alpha 4.2 installation instructions
.
Snapshots are made available from time to time, in
this location
as well as in a few
mirrors.
Here are the
OpenBSD/alpha snapshot installation instructions
as well.
There are several installation media provided:
- CD boot
Booting off the OpenBSD CD provides an El Torito 2.88MB floppy image
that contains drivers for the most popular devices found in alpha
hardware.
This also includes minimal USB support (storage devices, keyboard and
some ethernet adapters).
For the latest list of drivers available on this image, please take a
look at the
RAMDISKBIG
kernel configuration file.
- Floppy A (floppy42.fs)
This 1.44MB floppy image supports the following alpha hardware:
- AlphaStation 200, 250, 255, 400
- AlphaServer 800, 1000, 1000A, 1200, and 4100
- AXPpci33 based machines, such as the ``Noname'', UDB, and Multia
- EB164 based machines, such as the PC164, 164SX and 164LX
- Personal Workstation (Miata)
It contains support for the on-board devices found on these machines,
however due to lack of place there are only few other drivers.
In particular, this floppy lacks cdrom support and will not
allow installation from cdrom media.
For the latest list of drivers available on this image, please take a
look at the
RAMDISK
kernel configuration file.
- Floppy B (floppyB42.fs)
This 1.44MB floppy image supports the following alpha hardware:
- Alpha Processor, Inc. UP1000
- XP1000, 264DP, DS10, and DS20, CS20
- Alpha Processor, Inc. UP2000, UP2000+
It contains support for the on-board devices found on these machines,
however due to lack of place there are only few other drivers.
In particular, this floppy lacks cdrom support and will not
allow installation from cdrom media.
For the latest list of drivers available on this image, please take a
look at the
RAMDISKB
kernel configuration file.
www@openbsd.org
$OpenBSD: alpha.html,v 1.224 2008/02/22 15:18:54 jmc Exp $