xref: /src/distrib/notes/alpha/hardware

NetBSD/alpha _VER runs on the following DEC Alpha platforms:

     DEC 3000/500-family systems 
     DEC 3000/300-family systems 
     Digital AlphaStation 200, 250, 255, and 400 systems 
     Digital AlphaStation 500 and 600 systems 
     Digital AXPpci systems (including UDB and Multia) 
     EB64+-family systems (including Digital EB64+ and third-party
        AlphaPC 64 systems) 
     EB164-family systems (including Digital EB164 and third-party
        AlphaPC 164 systems) 
     Digital AlphaServer 8200 and 8400 systems 

If your system is not listed here, it is not supported in this release,
but may be supported in more current versions of NetBSD. Check the
alpha port web pages at <http://www.netbsd.org/> for the most recent
information on this, or ask on the alpha mailing list,
<port-alpha (a] netbsd.org>.

NetBSD/alpha requires the Digital Unix PALcode, which basically means
that you need to have the SRM console installed on your machine. This
console can be distinguished from the ARC console (which is used to
boot Windows NT) by the fact that it has a command line interface,
rather than a menu-driven interface.

A basic system will fit on a 200 MB disk (including swap) without too
much difficulty, but you will probably want at least 500 MB of disk
to have any level of comfort. You will also need at least 32 MB of
RAM, and you will probably want more than that if you're running X.

We support add-in devices on the PCI, ISA, EISA and TurboChannel buses.
Because NetBSD has an extremely machine-independent device driver
system, many device drivers are the same as used in other ports that
use the same bus. For example, the de network card driver is shared
by the i386 and Alpha ports. Some drivers on inspection appear as if
they will work on the alpha but have not been tested because that
hardware was not available to NetBSD testers; these are marked as
`UNTESTED' below. If you have one of these devices, and it does work,
please get in touch with <port-alpha-maintainer (a] netbsd.org> and let
us know that it works. If it doesn't work, do the same thing and we
can probably fix it pretty easily.

Supported devices by bus type are:

PCI Bus

    Graphics Adapters
        VGA-compatible video (pcivga) 
        ZLXp-E1 video (DECchip 21030-based video, tga, NOTE: ZLXp-E2
            and ZLXp-E3 boards are not supported in NetBSD _VER.)) 

    Network Cards
        DECchip 21x40-family 10 and 100 Mbps Ethernet (de) 
        DEC DEFPA FDDI (fpa) 
        PCI LANCE Ethernet (le, UNTESTED) 
        Efficient Networks ENI-155p ATM (en, UNTESTED) 
        3Com 3c59x and 3c90x (except 3c906) 10 and 100 Mbps Ethernet (ep) 
        Intel EtherExpress Pro 10/100B PCI Ethernet (fxp, UNTESTED) 

    SCSI Controllers
        Adaptec 294x, 394x, and aic78x0 SCSI (ahc) 
        BusLogic 9xx SCSI (bha, Works on Alpha PC164) 
        Qlogic ISP 10x0-family SCSI (isp) 
        NCR/Symbios 53c8xx-family SCSI (ncr, NCR825 Doesn't always work) 

    Miscellaneous Devices
        Cyclades Cyclom-Y serial boards (cy, UNTESTED) 
        PCI-PCI bridges (ppb, tested with the DECchip 21050, but should
            work with all bridges and system firmware revisions that
            comply with the PCI-PCI bridge specification) 

ISA Bus

    Network Cards
        3Com 3c509 Ethernet (ep) 

    Miscellaneous Devices
        PC-style parallel ports (lpt) 
        NS16450 and NS16550 UARTs (com) 
        ISA multi-port 16x50 boards (such as ast, boca--only boca has
            been tested) 

EISA Bus

    Network Cards
        DEC DEFEA FDDI (fea) 
        3Com 3c5xx series (ed, UNTESTED) 

    SCSI Controllers
        Adaptec 274x and aic7770 SCSI (ahc, UNTESTED) 
        BusLogic 7xx SCSI (bha, UNTESTED) 

Turbochannel Bus

    Graphics Adapters
         CFB video (PMAG-BA, cfb) 
         SFB video (PMAGB-BA, sfb) 
    (Note that although these boards are supported by NetBSD/alpha,
    since there is no keyboard or mouse support available for the
    TurboChannel systems, they aren't very useful.)

    Network Cards
        DEC LANCE Ethernet (PMAD-AA, le, UNTESTED) 
        DEC DEFTA FDDI (PMAF-F, fta) 

Note that PC-style floppy disk drives are not supported in 1.3
(except to boot from), but are supported to some degree in
NetBSD-current.

Note that some devices, especially ISA-based devices, have to have
certain settings set properly for the install and GENERIC kernels to
detect them. (Once installed, you can always rebuild your own kernel
to detect them anywhere you wish, of course.) Here is a list of such
devices and the necessary settings:

Device          Name    Port    IRQ     DRQ     Misc
------          ----    ----    ---     ---     ----
Serial ports    com0    0x3f8   4               [8250/16450/16550/clones]
                com1    0x2f8   3               [8250/16450/16550/clones]
                com2    0x3e8   5               [8250/16450/16550/clones]

Parallel ports  lpt0    0x378   7               [interrupt-driven or polling]
                lpt1    0x278                   [polling only]
                lpt2    0x3bc                   [polling only]

AHA-174x SCSI host adapters (in enhanced mode)
                ahb0    any     any     any

AHA-2X4X or AIC-7XXX-based SCSI host adapters
                ahc0    any     any any

Bus Logic BT445, BT74x, or BT9xx SCSI host adapters
                bha0    0x330   any     any
                bha1    0x334   any     any

MFM/ESDI/IDE/RLL hard disk controllers
                wdc0    0x1f0   14              [supports two devices]
                wdc1    0x170   15              [supports two devices]

ATA disks       wd0, wd1, ...
SCSI disks      sd0, sd1, ...
SCSI tapes      st0, st1, ...
SCSI and ATAPI CD-ROMs cd0, cd1, ...
        For each SCSI and IDE controller found, the SCSI or ATA(PI) devices
        present on the bus are probed in increasing id order for SCSI and
        master/slave order for ATA(PI). So the first SCSI drive found will
        be called sd0, the second sd1, and so on ...

3COM 3x59X or 3COM 3x90X PCI Ethernet boards
                ep0     any     any     [you must assign an interrupt in your
                                         PCI BIOS, or let it do so for you]

Intel EtherExpress 100 Fast Ethernet adapters
                fxp0    any     any     [you must assign an interrupt in your
                                         PCI BIOS, or let it do so for you]