“This article describes how to have fun and impress your friends by obtaining old Alpha workstations and installing Debian GNU/Linux on them. I’ll be installing “potato” (2.2.R3) on my AlphaStation 250. This is a 1995-vintage workstation with an Alpha CPU. It’s the main application/DNS/NFS/DHCP server on my home network, and is presently my favorite machine. I had been running RedHat on it, but after seeing “apt-get dist-upgrade” run for the first time earlier this year, I’ve been upgrading all my boxes to Debian.” Read the rest of the article at DebianPlanet.
Installing Debian GNU/Linux on Alpha CPUs
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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My roomate has an old alpha he picked up at work. Installed Debian on it. And now REFUSES to turn it off! It’s got some old SCSI drives in it and the whine of the disks are just EVIL on my ears. Imagine a high pitched piercing scream like that of a perpetual scraping of fingernails on a chalkboard at a frequency just above what most people can hear (apparently).
It hurts. It sucks. It gives me a headache. He won’t turn it off. Why? “Cuz it’s an Alpha!” Hey, I’m just as much of a tech junkie as he is (and to be honest, I’m jelous that he has it and I don’t), but I wouldn’t leave it on if it was mine simply because of the noise. I don’t care if it *is* an Alpha.
Right now there’s a blanket over it to deaden the sound. It doesn’t work well (and the box gets amazingly hot :-).
So before you run off to eBay and look for an old machine to use as bragging rights for your geekiness, be sure to think of other people who may just have more hearing range than you do!
L33t linux users don’t turn off their machines. It ruins their uptime. Uptime is everything.
There are longs threads on forums consisting of people posting their uptimes…
lol. I have an Alpha, and yes i refuse to turn it off unless i have to. The box just doesnt crash, well, except for the insta-crash after I burn a CD with a shotty burner i got cause it ‘wasnt working’.
I love this box, debian runs AWESOMELY on it. My only problems with it are:
-no sound in 2.x kernel (i’ve tried EVERYTHING)
-no 3D acceleration for the Radeon i put it due to lack of OSS drivers for the card, but works fine for 2D.
-low on RAM, mozilla eats my 128megs in a hurry. but i if i keep out of mozilla im just fine.
Screechy drives give machines character, I actually miss the sound of my A500’s floppy drive. :>
“There are longs threads on forums consisting of people posting their uptimes…”
Yes, apparently some people in the *Nix community somehow equate uptime with penis length.
Even if your box has been up for 3 years without a reboot, why I should care is completely beyond my comprehension.