RE: New User Question
It is a little hard to tell just from what you have said. It would be
helpful to know what motherboard architecture the machine is. Is it an
"LX" or an "SX" ? Or something else? If you can find the NTSI model
number of the box, that may help determine what exactly it is.
Since the machine was running NT, your current firmware should be some
flavor of AlphaBios, or something capable of booting NT. If the
motherboard supports it, it should be switched to the "SRM console"
firmware as that is better supported by Linux these days. This may
require reflashing the motherboard eeproms.
If your box is not capable of running SRM, you still may be able to boot
Linux using the Alphabios/MILO boot method, however it is not as well
supported anymore. You may need to jump through a couple of extra hoops
to do it that way.
What kind of graphics card does the machine have? That may affect your
ability to run X Windows depending on what you have.
Jeff D
-----Original Message-----
From: jacheatwood@bellsouth.net [mailto:jacheatwood@bellsouth.net]
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 7:43 AM
To: debian-alpha@lists.debian.org
Subject: New User Question
Hello,
I have found, what seems to be, an old Alpha. My goal is to use this
machine to learn about linux/debian.
I need help to identify what this machine is.
Machine was built by NTSI to use as a Pro/e NT workstation.
Processor ID is 21164 ver. 5.0
Alpha Firmware is 4.48
Further Questions would be, is it possible for this machine to run
Debian and not NT.
Does the firmware need to be updated?
Thanks in advance
james
Reply to: