re:MILO

["Ian Willmott" <willmott@nortel.ca>]

In message "MILO", wojtek@dracula.gda.osk.pl writes:

> I've trying to install debian on my AXPPCI33,
> It installs ok,but...
> MILO detects only 24MB of RAM (I have 2x32MB RAM)

As far as I can tell, MILO doesn't detect memory size at all on the
AXPpci33. (Although I don't see why it couldn't; the hardware certainly
knows this.) It maintains a variable called MEMORY_SIZE in the NVRAM,
and this defaults to 24M when you first load MILO. You have to set this  
to the correct value. I set mine to 64M and it works fine. Try 'help
env' or see the MILO howto:

http://www.azstarnet.com/~axplinux/milo.html

> Alpha works VERY SLOW (like 486/33), while it has 166Mhz clock
> and 1MB cache

If there seems to be a problem with the cache, it's worth building the
diagnostic LED board described in the manual to see what's going on. You 
can get an updated copy of the manual from here:

http://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/axppci/read_me.html

If you need new cache chips, Alliance Semiconductor sells them very
cheaply. You need part # AS7C256 for 256K cache or AS7C1024 for 1M
cache. See their web site for a PDF spec sheet and a list of
distributors:

http://www.alsc.com

> cat /proc/cpuinfo gives strange things like 1024Mhz, Linux_is_great as
> palcode etc.
> 
> I boot MILO from SRM console.
> 
> I will try using aboot...
> 
> Has anybody else have such problems ???

If you don't need to run DEC Unix, you can burn MILO into the flash and
save some memory. See the MILO howto for details.


Ian Willmott
Northern Telecom
Ottawa Ontario Canada
willmott@nortel.ca.nospam.org (remove everything after 'ca' to reply)