Installing Debian on a (possibly flaky) AlphaServer 1000A?

["Rice, Gregg M." <GRice@UTNet.UToledo.Edu>]

My department has an AlphaServer 1000A 5/300 pedestal system (128M memory, 6G of disk) on which I'd like to install Debian. It has been used by others for quite a while (running NT), and just recently arrived in our office. It has a video card in addition to the VGA port on the motherboard, and when I originally turned it on the card sent out a video signal but not the motherboard's VGA port. It typically starts up OK, but has occasionally stopped with the message "srom v1.0 f4" displayed on the control panel.

It runs AlphaBIOS 5.28, and when I attempted to switch from this to SRM (as suggested in of the Debian Alpha FAQs), after the restart I get no video from either VGA port (flying blind ...).

Thanks in advance to any Alpha experts out there with any suggestions.