AlphaStation DS10 + Gentoo Linux

Posted by NISMO1968@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 11 comments

Hey! So, I RMA-ed my NOS Samsung 164LX board as it wasn't stable, and I'm trying to install Gentoo Linux on my other box, which is original AlphaStation DS10. Custom-built kernel crashes right after probing SCSI devices and I can't figure out why :( Does anybody have a working .config file for DS10 I could take a look to see what's different? Thanks! -nismo1968 P.S. It's weird, but "Tsunami" had disappeared from the "Systems" menu. It was there still like two weeks ago... Why?!

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11 Comments

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DogAway4337@reddit

That's good advice. I would probably do something similar if I were to part with my hardware. It's not about making money, flipping for me. I run several Sun SPARC servers, a Sun workstation, and various fully working retro x86 machines. I keep them in pristine condition. I don't want to have more machines than I can maintain, but an Alpha would be a welcome addition. I have some experience with it from before, running Linux, but that was a Miata workstation. My office is Sun territory, which few people understand 😂 Feel free to check out my post on that ;) https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/s/rajO5akTfp

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NISMO1968@reddit (OP)

> My **office is Sun territory**, which few people understand 😂 I did a lot of Sun stuff back in the late 90s and early 2000s. My last working box is an Ultra45, and there's also an Ultra10 gathering dust somewhere in my parents' house basement. Back then, Solaris on SPARC was pretty much a fixture in a lot of Valley machine rooms, and those old Sun boxes just seemed to run forever.

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misterhinkydink@reddit

21272 Pchip is PCI 2.1 so no MSI. You could try 'pci=nomsi' on the boot cmd line if you don't have it disabled in the config. I had to do this for my 'noname'.

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NISMO1968@reddit (OP)

> 21272 Pchip is PCI 2.1 so no MSI. You could **try 'pci=nomsi' on the boot cmd line** if you don't have it disabled in the config. I had to do this for my 'noname'. I'll give it a shot! Q: How do I capture the whole boot log into file? I checked /var/log/ after reboot, but there's no dmesg or anything like that. > In 6.8, it looks like **Tsunami is under 'CPUSETS'/'DP264'**. There's only DP264, and no Tsunami.

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misterhinkydink@reddit

On Debian 12 x86/amd64 I had to install 'syslog-ng' to get syslog. My 'noname' runs Debian 8 but with new kernels. This is from 6.8: DP264 (ALPHA_DP264) CONFIG_ALPHA_DP264: Various 21264 systems with the tsunami core logic chipset. API Networks: 264DP, UP2000(+), CS20; Compaq: DS10(E,L), XP900, XP1000, DS20(E), ES40. Symbol: ALPHA_DP264 [=n] Type : bool Defined at arch/alpha/Kconfig:160 Prompt: DP264 Depends on: <choice> Location: -> System setup -> Alpha system type (<choice> [=y]) -> DP264 (ALPHA_DP264 [=n])

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NISMO1968@reddit (OP)

I have syslogd up & running, but at that early stage it's useless pretty much. Update: I figured out what's wrong by trial-and-error! It's Qlogic QLA1020 I have couldn't find firmware. I built it as a module rather than compiled into the kernel, found a line in dmesg where it complains about missing firmware binary. Unmasked linux-firmware and waiting for emerge to complete...

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DogAway4337@reddit

Did you every try running X11 on this box? Alpha is an arch still missing in my collection, so considering getting some HW from Ebay and testing Gentoo on it.

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NISMO1968@reddit (OP)

> Did you every **try running X11 on this** box? Alpha is an arch still missing in my collection, so **considering getting some HW from Ebay** and testing Gentoo on it. Yes, but I gave up on Gentoo because I never managed to get it fully working on any of my Alphas, which included an original DS10 workstation and a custom built Samsung PC164 engineering board based machine. Both are running the latest official release of OpenVMS from VMS Software now. I donated the PC164, but I still keep the DS10 in my remote mountain office. Back to your eBay hunt, I can recommend Island Computer. They sell refurbished DEC hardware, and while it may be a bit more expensive than eBay sourced junk, you at least get components that are in decent cosmetic condition, have been tested, and come from machines that are actually running and booting into an OS. In the end, you'll probably save both time and money. For example, I had to replace all the capacitors on my PC164 because the memory bus wasn't stable. It would throw random memory corruption errors depending on the time of day, temperature, and other environmental factors.

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DogAway4337@reddit

Thank you for the in depth reply 🙂 I will check out Island Computer. Fully agree, it can be worth the extra premium to get hold of something in good condition.

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NISMO1968@reddit (OP)

Final piece of advice: Try to score somebody's known-good hobby machine, one that's fully functional and can actually do real work, boot cleanly, compile large codebases, render stuff, run Doom, whatever! My buddy was relocating from Mountain View back to Ireland and let his fully loaded DS25 go for basically beer money. If that thing hadn't weighed a ton, he probably would've shipped it home, but sometimes the logistics bill kills the nostalgia. People part with their beloved hardware all the time, and a lot of the old-school DEC, Sun, SGI, and Alpha crowd are aging out of the hobby, downsizing, moving, or simply trying to make sure their gear lands with someone who'll appreciate it. If folks know you're genuinely into the platform and not just looking to flip it on eBay, you can often get an amazing deal. Case in point, I gave away my PC164 and an HPE C8000 that I bought brand new. For free! Not for money, not for a tax write-off, just because I knew the people getting them were actual enthusiasts. I'd much rather see hardware go to someone who'll keep it alive, hack on it, and show it off than watch it get parted out by some random reseller trying to squeeze a few extra bucks out of it

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NISMO1968@reddit (OP)

Final piece of advice: Try to score somebody's known-good hobby machine, one that's fully functional and can actually do real work, boot cleanly, compile large codebases, render stuff, run Doom, whatever! A friend of mine was relocating from Mountain View back to Ireland and let his fully loaded DS25 go for basically beer money. If that thing hadn't weighed a ton, he probably would've shipped it home, but sometimes the logistics bill kills the nostalgia. People part with their beloved hardware all the time, and a lot of the old-school DEC, Sun, SGI, and Alpha crowd are aging out of the hobby, downsizing, moving, or simply trying to make sure their gear lands with someone who'll appreciate it. If folks know you're genuinely into the platform and not just looking to flip it on eBay, you can often get an amazing deal. Case in point, I gave away my PC164 and an HPE C8000 that I bought brand new. For free! Not for money, not for a tax write-off, just because I knew the people getting them were actual enthusiasts. I'd much rather see hardware go to someone who'll keep it alive, hack on it, and show it off than watch it get parted out by some random reseller trying to squeeze a few extra bucks out of it.