NetBSD/alpha

NetBSD/alpha is the port of NetBSD to Digital's Alpha AXP systems. It is a true 64-bit port, and uses 64-bit pointers and 64-bit long integers. At present, it runs on all of the TurboChannel-based and some of the PCI-based workstations.

If you're looking for the list of hardware supported by NetBSD/alpha, look at the supported hardware list.

If you're looking for a quick answer to a common question, you might check the NetBSD/alpha FAQ.

The History of NetBSD/alpha

The NetBSD/alpha port began with NetBSD-current sources from a bit before the NetBSD 1.0 release. NetBSD/alpha's first formal release was NetBSD 1.2, though the NetBSD/alpha distribution in that release was more of a snapshot than a real release.

The original binary and source snapshot of NetBSD/alpha was made available to the public on February 21, 1995. It supported only the DEC 3000/500 family of systems (the 3000/[4-9]00). Soon after the initial release, support for the DEC 3000/300 family was added, so that NetBSD/alpha would run on all of Digital's TurboChannel-based Alpha systems.

PCI-based systems were first supported in the binary and source snapshot made on June 8, 1995. As of that time, the AlphaStation 200 and 400 were the only PCI-based systems supported. Since then, support for more members of the AlphaStation 200 family (the 250 and 255), for the AlphaStation 500 and 600, for AXPpci systems (including UDB and Multia), and for AlphaPC 164 (EB164) systems has been added.

At this time, development is primarily done on the PCI-based systems. As a consequence of this, problems with NetBSD/alpha on the TurboChannel-based systems are unlikely to be addressed quickly.

Chris Demetriou is the maintainer and primary developer of NetBSD/alpha. The initial development and ongoing maintenance of NetBSD/alpha has been funded by Carnegie Mellon University.

Supported Systems and Known Problems

Systems supported by NetBSD/alpha include:

Known machine-independent problems in NetBSD/alpha include:

See the systems' pages for lists known machine-specific problems.

More Information about Digital's Alpha Systems

Chris Demetriou is slowly compiling a list of Alpha documentation references (which even includes some machine-readable documentation, but is sadly out of date when compared to the Alpha documentation available from NetBSD FTP sites).


[MAILING LISTS] There are mailing lists associated with the Alpha port.

Go to the NetBSD/alpha distribution on ftp.netbsd.org


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