[9fans] alpha port?

[9fans] alpha port?

[John Floren]

Hi
I've heard on #plan9 that there is support for some alpha machines;
can somebody who uses that tell me how well it works? What models are
supported? Is it a pain to get everything up and working?
Thanks

John
-- 
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" -- Shakespeare, Henry VI

Re: [9fans] alpha port?

[Paweł Lasek]

On 9/5/06, John Floren <slawmaster@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi
> I've heard on #plan9 that there is support for some alpha machines;
> can somebody who uses that tell me how well it works? What models are
> supported? Is it a pain to get everything up and working?
> Thanks

I second that question. I can't recall now what models were supported,
but I am certainly looking for knowledge about alpha support, since I
am going to gain an Alphastation 255/233 which I want to use to play
with programming., so I could test if it would work with Plan9 (it has
standard tulip network interface and SRM Console. I need to check what
kind of SCSI controller is in use.)

> John
> --
> "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" -- Shakespeare, Henry VI

-- 
Paul Lasek

Re: [9fans] alpha port?

[geoff]

The port is for the Alpha PC 164 (see /sys/doc/port.*) but I believe
Andrey and others have had it running on other models.  The list
archives should have the details.  The models vary quite a bit, so
moving Plan 9 to a model that nobody has run Plan 9 on before may
involve some work.

We still have an Alpha PC 164 here for testing, but I don't think
anyone is actively working on the Alpha port.

Re: [9fans] alpha port?

[Bruce Ellis]

i think that's right. i had a 164 which dhog used for alpha stuff.

brucee

On 9/7/06, geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com <geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com> wrote:
> The port is for the Alpha PC 164 (see /sys/doc/port.*) but I believe
> Andrey and others have had it running on other models.  The list
> archives should have the details.  The models vary quite a bit, so
> moving Plan 9 to a model that nobody has run Plan 9 on before may
> involve some work.
>
> We still have an Alpha PC 164 here for testing, but I don't think
> anyone is actively working on the Alpha port.
>
>

Re: [9fans] alpha port?

[Paweł Lasek]

On 9/7/06, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:
> i think that's right. i had a 164 which dhog used for alpha stuff.

Well, the machine I've got is Alphastation 255/233 with latest SRM
available for it.
21064A 233MHz and 128-bit 32MB ram should be enough to try porting
Plan9 to it? :-)

While I don't have very good coding skills, I'll try to adapt existing
code to make it boot, then rewrite loader to allow direct booting from
disk drive (pka0: 53c810 scsi). I'll try to bring it's 21041 and my
21040 and 21140 network cards to work too.

Unfortunately I can't give any estimates for that work (I don't have
normal internet access and I need to prepare a working place for my pc
- I'm in the middle of painting/laying floor my room...)

Any additional info about plan9 on alpha would be appreciated.

> brucee

-- 
Paul Lasek

Re: Re: [9fans] alpha port?

[Anthony Sorace]

i had a 21064 system sitting around. around '99 i tried to get plan9
working on it, without much luck. dhog gave me a little time on it and
said the then-current port required at least a 21164, possibly a
21164A, as it relied on some extensions to the ISA. he wasn't
interested in extending support to older chips, so unless someone else
picked it up, you might get to. :-)

Re: Re: [9fans] alpha port?

[geoff]

As /sys/doc/port.ms says,
---
The compiler assumes that the target CPU supports the optional byte and
word memory operations (the ``BWX'' extension).
If you have an old system, you can generate code without using the extension
by passing the loader the
.CW -x
option.
---

That may not be enough though; dhog thought that some of the
device drivers might depend upon byte or word accesses.
Plus you'd need to check all the assembly language code for
BWX operations.

And of course details of I/O and memory management vary across
Alpha models.

Re: Re: [9fans] alpha port?

[Paweł Lasek]

On 9/14/06, geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com <geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com> wrote:
> As /sys/doc/port.ms says,
> ---
> The compiler assumes that the target CPU supports the optional byte and
> word memory operations (the ``BWX'' extension).
> If you have an old system, you can generate code without using the extension
> by passing the loader the
> .CW -x
> option.
> ---
>
> That may not be enough though; dhog thought that some of the
> device drivers might depend upon byte or word accesses.
> Plus you'd need to check all the assembly language code for
> BWX operations.

I recall that there was some kind of EV56 emulator for EV45, which
added BWX and some other operations to running cpu (like FPU
emulator). The problem is that it might be hidden behind some
proprietary license.

If all goes wrong I'll just need to grep them all...
> And of course details of I/O and memory management vary across
> Alpha models.

Isn't that the reason PAL exists? ;-)

Well, I'll look into netbsd/alpha code for AS255 and check relevant
parts. IIRC many things were accomplished in netbsd by using OSF
PALcode.

But first I'll need to get a place to put my normal computer to do any
work, so don't expect anything fast :-)

-- 
Paul Lasek

Re: Re: [9fans] alpha port?

[Bruce Ellis]

someone at basser gave dhog substantial alpha support, danny lee perhaps.
i just gave hime mine 'cause almost none of red-hat worked on it and i wanted
plan9.  and linux isn't allowed in the house.  mark shand knows too much about
alphas and i'll ask him any specific question.  his wine cellar is
still cluttered
with buzzing alphas.

brucee

On 9/15/06, Paweł Lasek <pawel.lasek@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/14/06, geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com <geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com> wrote:
> > As /sys/doc/port.ms says,
> > ---
> > The compiler assumes that the target CPU supports the optional byte and
> > word memory operations (the ``BWX'' extension).
> > If you have an old system, you can generate code without using the extension
> > by passing the loader the
> > .CW -x
> > option.
> > ---
> >
> > That may not be enough though; dhog thought that some of the
> > device drivers might depend upon byte or word accesses.
> > Plus you'd need to check all the assembly language code for
> > BWX operations.
>
> I recall that there was some kind of EV56 emulator for EV45, which
> added BWX and some other operations to running cpu (like FPU
> emulator). The problem is that it might be hidden behind some
> proprietary license.
>
> If all goes wrong I'll just need to grep them all...
> > And of course details of I/O and memory management vary across
> > Alpha models.
>
> Isn't that the reason PAL exists? ;-)
>
> Well, I'll look into netbsd/alpha code for AS255 and check relevant
> parts. IIRC many things were accomplished in netbsd by using OSF
> PALcode.
>
> But first I'll need to get a place to put my normal computer to do any
> work, so don't expect anything fast :-)
>
> --
> Paul Lasek
>

RE: Re: [9fans] alpha port?

[Benjamin Huntsman]

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I was playing around with the Alpha port earlier this year, trying to get it running on my Multia.
I got the bootloader to compile and run fine, using the "no BWX" flag

never got a Plan 9 server set up to provide a kernel or filesystem, though...

Make sure you have a recent version of the sources... I had changed a few parts of the PALcode definitions earlier this year...

-Ben


-----Original Message-----
From: 9fans-bounces+bhuntsman=mail2.cu-portland.edu@cse.psu.edu on behalf of Bruce Ellis
Sent: Sun 9/17/2006 12:53 PM
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
Subject: Re: Re: [9fans] alpha port?
 
someone at basser gave dhog substantial alpha support, danny lee perhaps.
i just gave hime mine 'cause almost none of red-hat worked on it and i wanted
plan9.  and linux isn't allowed in the house.  mark shand knows too much about
alphas and i'll ask him any specific question.  his wine cellar is
still cluttered
with buzzing alphas.

brucee

On 9/15/06, Pawel Lasek <pawel.lasek@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/14/06, geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com <geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com> wrote:
> > As /sys/doc/port.ms says,
> > ---
> > The compiler assumes that the target CPU supports the optional byte and
> > word memory operations (the ``BWX'' extension).
> > If you have an old system, you can generate code without using the extension
> > by passing the loader the
> > .CW -x
> > option.
> > ---
> >
> > That may not be enough though; dhog thought that some of the
> > device drivers might depend upon byte or word accesses.
> > Plus you'd need to check all the assembly language code for
> > BWX operations.
>
> I recall that there was some kind of EV56 emulator for EV45, which
> added BWX and some other operations to running cpu (like FPU
> emulator). The problem is that it might be hidden behind some
> proprietary license.
>
> If all goes wrong I'll just need to grep them all...
> > And of course details of I/O and memory management vary across
> > Alpha models.
>
> Isn't that the reason PAL exists? ;-)
>
> Well, I'll look into netbsd/alpha code for AS255 and check relevant
> parts. IIRC many things were accomplished in netbsd by using OSF
> PALcode.
>
> But first I'll need to get a place to put my normal computer to do any
> work, so don't expect anything fast :-)
>
> --
> Paul Lasek
>


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Re: [9fans] alpha port?

[Jean Mehat]

Two years ago, I made (with a lot of help from jmk) two minor modifications
to make alphapc boot on a Dec Personnal Workstation, model st550. I tried
weakly to adapt the video card driver from 386 to alphapc, but got caught
by other tasks.