[geeks] Alpha check

[Joshua D. Boyd]

On Thu, 17 May 2001, Ken Hansen wrote:
> > Apache/MySQL/PHP run well on Multias.  If you are careful with how
> > hard you use the database, you shouldn't have too much trouble
> > saturating the 10mbit network port with those machines. That was my first
> > use of Alphas was in doing web dev on a friends Multia running those
> > packages.
> 
> So the follow-up question is this, would a straight Red Hat Linux 7.0
> or 7.1 (if available) install be a good place to start? I'd fire up the
> 200/166 (since it is all built-up, ready for me) and throw it on there
> for giggles/testing.

I recommend debian.  I use both redhat and debian on intel, and am
reasonably happy with both.  From what I've seen though, debian is much
nicer for sparcs and alphas than redhat is.

FreeBSD is rumored to be quite nice on the Alpha, and there is always
NetBSD (and probably OpenBSD).  If I weren't using it for my file server
(I have several large drives file server, and I don't have any good way to
store the data while reformating the drives), I'd look into NetBSD for the
Alpha I'm looking at.

> > If I weren't trying to reuse as much as I could from my current file
> > server/intranet server, I'd take a multia, since you can use the PCI cage
> > to add an extra scsi card, and an extra ethernet card and use all scsi.
> > My problem is that I also want several IDE drives to save money.
> 
> The Multias take PCMCIA cards, don't they? Are any network cards supported? 
> I can find some common 3Com 10 base T cards for $15/ea (3C589C/D) - they
> would allow you to stuff two more network connections in a straight
> Multia. Also, a 2.5" IDE laptop drive can be added w/o major hassles,
> IIRC. I would be reluctant to place a real 3.5" SCSI drive inside a
> Multia...

Yes, the Multia's take PCMCIA cards.  I don't know about actual support
though.  Lessee, the multia had ethernet on board didn't it?  It also had
scsi on board.  So, adding two external scsi busses wouldn't be too hard.
You could handle a cdrom, a tape drive, and 10 harddrives in external
bays striped as two large drives.  Then, with the second PCI slot (it was
two, right?), you could add another NIC, then two NICs in the PC card
slots.  Boot the whole thing off an old 2.5" notebook drive.  64megs of
ram.  And for those of us who like maxing out old boxes, that is probably
the end goal.  hehe.

Next up, DRAM stacking to expand a Playstation to 8 megs of ram so that we
can put NetBSD on it.  Use either the parellel port or the serial port for
some sort network connection for the file system.

--
Joshua Boyd