Linux on the DEC 3000

Linux on the
DEC 3000

This page is dedicated to documenting my own trials and tribulations of getting Linux to run on the DEC 3000 series machines. These machines were DEC's first generation of Alphas and used the Turbochannel bus.

I'm not sure I will get very far - I don't have any experience dealing with the innards of the linux kernel, I don't know assembly for any architecture, and my C programming skills are underdeveloped. I view this as a practical (and fun!) learning opportunity for myself, and I'm sure the above shortcomings (and others) will be addressed as I struggle with this (and a struggle is what I expect). Who knows, maybe I'll end up getting this to work.

FWIW, here is my original posting to Redhat's axp-list.

Goals

My first goal is to get one of these machines to boot with a serial console via BOOTP.

To accomplish this, I was kindly loaned a DEC 3000 machine from my workplace.

Working Environment

	Development Platform	Target Platform
Machine	AlphaStation 250 4/266	DEC 3000/600
Firmware	SRM v7.0	SRM v7.0
Operating System	Linux v2.2.5	n/a
Boot loader	aboot 0.5-9	n/a
Compiler	egcs-1.1.2	n/a

These machines are networked with a few other machines via a 10 Mbit switch.

There are other machine types at work which I can probably gain access to if and when the need arises - for now I will concentrate my efforts on the DEC 3000/600.

If you read my porting notes, you will find me referring to the development and target boxes by their hostnames, "eressea" and "caradhras", respectively. caradhras does not have any turbochannel options installed. eressea is presently running RedHat 5.2.

Goals

Working Environment

Links