OpenBSD/alpha

History and Status:

The OpenBSD/alpha port was begun in the summer of 1996 by using code from the NetBSD/alpha port which was begun by Chris Demetriou <cgd@netbsd.org> 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. While we were making fixes, 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of a lack of programmer resources and the inability to use NetBSD code, hardware and software support became very outdated.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, alpha was not included in the 2.7 release.

Recently, 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 are 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.)

There is currently no maintainer for the alpha port. Technical discussion about the alpha port should be directed to <alpha@openbsd.org>. 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.

Projects (in no particular order):

• Bring the alpha kernel up to date with what NetBSD has.
• New Binutils to support ELF object file format. (gives shared libs)
• New bootblocks to support ELF.
• Up to date compat_osf1.

Supported Hardware:

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.

• DEC 3000/[3456789]00 series with the following peripherals:
  • Supported hardware:
    • Built-in serial ports.
    • Built-in LANCE ethernet.
    • Built-in SCSI chips (53c[f]94), though both may not work at the same time.
  • Things that may work but haven't been tested:
    • TurboChannel option slot LANCE (PMAD-A).
  • Things are *not* supported at this time:
    • Frame buffers of any type.
    • Other TurboChannel option boards.
    • The ISDN/Audio chip.
• AlphaStation {200,250,255,400,500}, AXPpci,
  Multia (though many Multias have experienced infant mortality or develop problems)
  Systems using the following peripherals:
  • Supported hardware:
    • NCR 53c810 SCSI (built-in or PCI board).
    • Built-in ns16550 serial ports.
    • DC21040-based ethernet (built-in or PCI board).
    • DC21140-based PCI ethernet boards.
    • DC21050-based PCI-PCI bridges (though other types of PCI-PCI bridges should work).
    • PCI VGA video boards.
    • ISA VGA boards.
    • DEC ZLXp-E1 (DC21030-based, "TGA") video boards.
    • PCI and ISA NE2000-compatible ethernet cards.
    • SMC/WD 8003, 8013, and the SMC "Elite16" ISA ethernet boards.
    • 3Com 3c503 ethernet cards.
    • 3Com 3c5xx/3c9xx ethernet cards.
    • Lite-On PNIC (82c168, 82c169) based ethernet cards.
    • Keyboard.
    • PS/2-style mice.
    • IDE controllers (including the built-in IDE controller on some machines).
    • Intel Etherexpress Pro/100B cards.
    • Cyclades ISA multiport serial cards.
  • Things that may work but haven't been tested:
    • Built-in parallel ports.
    • ISA ns16x50-family serial port boards.
    • ISA ns16x50 multi-port serial boards.
    • Other NCR 53c8xx SCSI boards.
    • The Adaptec 152* SCSI controller ISA boards.
  • Things that are *not* supported at this time:
    • Sound hardware (including Windows Sound System built-in on some machines).
    • DEC ZLXp-E2 and ZLXp-E3 PCI video boards.
    • The built-in scsi controller on the AlphaStation 600.
    • PCI and ISA boards not listed above.
    • The floppy drive.
• At this time none of the following systems are supported:
  • DECpc AXP 150 systems (EISA-bus PC-like systems)
  • Alpha "server" systems (other than perhaps the AlphaServer 400, which might be an AlphaStation 400 in disguise).
  • Multiprocessor alpha systems
  • EB164, PC164, PC164[LSR]X
  • Digital Personal Workstation (Miata) systems
  • 21264 based systems
  • API (Alpha Processor, Inc.) systems

Snapshots:

While we are bringing the alpha port back to life snapshots will be unpredictable an sporadic at best. If you are interested in helping out, we encourage you to grab a snapshot, sync with -current and dig in!