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DEC AlphaStation 200 RedHat Install Instructions

Related Sites:

DEC Alpha Firmware on Digital's ftp site
DEC Alpha MILO/Miniloader files
Most recent MILO for the AlphaStation 200, including support for a 24-plane TGA card

FIRMWARE

The firmware to run ARC is on DEC's ftp site. The instructions are as follows:

Go to ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware/, and browse down to find the file as200_v7_0.exe. You should update your BIOS to this version anyway for Linux. While there, locate the file mkboot.exe. The utility mkboot.exe will take as200_v7_0.exe and turn it into a floppy image, and then write that image to a floppy disk -- THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS THE UNIX DD COMMAND. Once that's done, insert the floppy and start your system. After SRM console loads, you can then use the command boot dva0, or whatever your floppy device is instead of dva0, and it will boot into the BIOS update. If you type "update" at the Apu-> prompt, it will update your BIOS as it is, if you type update arc, it will switch you to ARC console, and if you type "update srm", it will update you to SRM console. If you switch to ARC Console, you will need to make a separate MS DOS floppy, and simply copy as200_v7_0.exe to it, then go to the submenu to Install firmware update..., follow the same Apu-> instructions as above to update to whatever console.

MILO

Most recent MILO for the AlphaStation 200, including support for a 24-plane TGA card

INSTALLATION

Follow the normal installations for a DEC AlphaStation 200. Use the MILO listed above, and the AVANTI.IMG boot image disk. You apparently can also use the XL.IMG disk, as it supports Avanti architecture, but the Avanti kernel seems to work better for most people.

Should the video wig out on you, follow these instructions to do a serial console session with your AS200.

1. Get a serial laplink/data transfer cable and hook it from a serial port on the terminal machine to the top serial port on the Alpha (serial 0)
2. Boot up the Alpha into ARC console, and Edit the Environment Variables. Change the CONSOLEOUT variable from [whatever]video()monitor()console() to [whatever]serial(0)console()
3. Save values and power off the alpha, then power it back up.
4. As soon as you start to boot, use HyperTerminal, or some other application to "listen" on the port that you connected the cable to on the terminal machine
5. I used the keyboard on the alpha to do my typing, because after linux starts loading, it punts the console output back to the video port.
6. After completing doing whatever installing of Linux and Milo that you're going to do, go edit the system variable CONSOLEOUT back to the video source.

XFree86 SUPPORT

Guess what?! That great TGA card we all got with our AS200's.... It's not supported by XFree86 as packaged by RedHat. Thanks to Tim Rowley, who patched in 24-plane support for us! Go Tim!

Tim's patches:

• Binary replacement
  
• Source code for patch

Tim's instructions:

The easiest way of going about installing the 24-plane TGA server is to grab the binary off my website, decompress it, and replace the existing XF86_TGA in /usr/X11R6/bin.

If you want to use the patch to compile a new Xserver, you'll need about 150Mb of disk space and a few hours to burn. I would also recommend using gcc instead of egcs for this (bad experiences with past egcs versions; current snapshots might work):

• Grab ftp.xfree86.org:/pub/XFree86/3.3.2/source/X332servonly.tgz
• Untar it somewhere
• Apply the patch:
  patch -p -E < tga-patch-XXXXXX
• Copy xc/config/cf/xf86site.def to xc/config/cf/host.def
• Edit xc/config/cf/host.def to taste
• Compile
  • make World >& world.log &
  • Wait...
  • Use the resulting Xserver: xc/programs/Xserver/XF86_TGA