What distro and how to install on a Alphaserver 800?

[bmacsys]

Hi, I guess I am what you would call a novice with Linux. I have installed Fedora Core, Suse, Mandrake, Yellow Dog on my pc's and Mac's which isn't any more difficult than installing OS X or Windows XP. Somebody gave me an Alphaserver 800 and I would like to install Linux on it instead of NT 4. My problem is I don't know what distro to use and don't know how I would install it without being able to boot from the cd drive which I don't think this machine supports. I have tried googling for info but haven't found much in the way of info. Thanks.

[Juan Pablo]

Can it boot from floppy? Does it have a CD drive?

[bmacsys]

Can it boot from floppy? Does it have a CD drive?

Juan, it has a cd rom but won't boot from it afaik. I am pretty sure it will boot from a floppy. I downloaded Centos Linux which says it supports this machine. As far as installing it I don't have a clue.

[Juan Pablo]

Download Smart boot manager, install it to a floppy, insert it and boot from it, then select boot from CD when the menu appears

[likwid]

Alphas have an interactive boot up environment like sparcs don't they?

[bmacsys]

Alphas have an interactive boot up environment like sparcs don't they?

I have never worked wit a Sun machine. This is my first foray with an Alpha too. I am just getting into x86 machines to. Working in printing I just kind of fell into working with Mac's in 1991. I am enjoying getting my feet wet with Linux because I get lots of old pc's from the dump and enjoy resurrecting them.

[bmacsys]

Download Smart boot manager, install it to a floppy, insert it and boot from it, then select boot from CD when the menu appears

Thanks Juan. I will give it a shot.

[likwid]

I have never worked wit a Sun machine. This is my first foray with an Alpha too. I am just getting into x86 machines to. Working in printing I just kind of fell into working with Mac's in 1991. I am enjoying getting my feet wet with Linux because I get lots of old pc's from the dump and enjoy resurrecting them.

Not sure "smart boot manager" works with alpha architectures. I think there is an interactive boot environment in alphas much like sun's openboot that you should be able to boot to any device from. Let me do some googling for you.

[likwid]

From AlphaServer 800:
Boot the CD-ROM to invoke the firmware update utility (e.g. boot dqa0)


Something I found from a random site, I found the user manual and am trying to find out how to get to the interactive part of the BIOS.

[likwid]

Here we go:

6.1 Invoking the SRM Console
In a system running the DIGITAL UNIX or OpenVMS Alpha operating system, do
one of the following steps to invoke the SRM console mode:
· Shut down the operating system according to the procedure described in your
operating system documentation.
· Press the Halt button on the control panel until it engages.
If you are in AlphaBIOS and want to switch to the SRM console, do one of the
following steps:
· Press the Halt button on the control panel until it engages.
· Select SRM from the Console Selection in the Advanced CMOS Setup screen.
After you have performed tasks in the console mode, you must boot the operating
system with the boot command to revert back to the operating mode.


When you get into the "SRM console" type

show device

This should show hard disks and such. Then type

boot cdromdevice

Where cdromdevice is the actual device name you want to boot.


I think this should work.