[CLUE-Tech] Alpha bios info.

[Adam_Bultman at gmx.net]

I feel SO left out because I wasn't able to get one of those (having moved
back to MI some months ago)...  

Well, let me know how those things (once fully functional) compare to their
x86 counterparts, would you?  I'm dying to know.

adam

> Here's what I've found about flashing the AS255's bios.  Not that it's
> helped much.
> 
> There are 2 bios consoles for the alpha, SRM and ARC/Alphabios.  The
> first understands BSD disklables and the second understands DOS
> partition tables.  They are for booting to Digital Unix or NT,
> respectively.  Some alphas have both in their bios, but the 255 can only
> hold one.  Milo works with both, aboot only works with SRM.
> 
> At the advice of the debian install guide (for woody), I decided to
> upgrade the bios.  We likely have a recent rev - Alphabios 5.68 is the
> latest out.  Debian also suggests using SRM, since milo may not be
> available in a recent form.
> 
> I've made the update floppy and run it.  I've made a bootable version of
> the same floppy and run that.  Both work to get me to a screen with 3
> menu options, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do anything at that
> point.  All the mail I've read says I should be able to upgrade the bios
> and pick SRM or Alphabios.
> 
> Interestingly, you can boot from either bios console to several boot
> devices, though SRM seems more flexible.  So I don't really need to
> change the bios.  The switch inside (S2) that says 'boot from floppy'
> means skip the bios console and boot from the floppy.  So if you mess up
> the bios, you can still run the update program to fix it.
> 
> If anyone has any ideas how to get this update program to work, I'd be
> happy to hear...
> 
> Here are some links:
> 
> http://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware/readmes/astn255.html -
> this is where you get the latest bios update, as255_v8_1.exe.  There's
> only one file but there are different ways to run it.  For Alphabios,
> put it on a FAT floppy as fwupdate.exe and run it from the bios menu.
> 
>
http://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware/readmes/utilities/mkboot.txt
> - this tells you about the mkboot program, that you can use to put the
> above update file on an alpha bootable disk (from DOS/Win).  The update
> file has to be renamed to fit 8.3 or the program won't recognize it.
> Actually it makes any program bootable, so it might be useful with a
> kernel too.
> 
>
http://www.uni-koeln.de/RRZK/systeme/dec/DEC-MANAGERS/1997/Januar-html/msg00041.html
> - this is the best summary I found of the issues.
> 
> Dave
> 
> 
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-- 
Adam Bultman

adam_bultman at bigfoot.com

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