Re: Alphas

Robert Harley (Robert.Harley@inria.fr)
Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:32:36 +0200 (MET DST)


>Who here has tried and know of loading Linux on an Alpha? Is it painless
>and reliable? [...]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean...

If you mean the installation itself, it was a little painful in our
case mostly because we installed on a Miata when the Miata port was
just days old. Not a lot of work, but a few non-obvious incantations
were necessary.

If you mean everyday use, it certainly is painless and reliable.
I'd go further and say it's fantastic... best system I've used!
It's a lean, mean Unix. Totally stable since day one (i.e., over
three months). Perfect multitasking of course, handles multiple
users, big processes very well. All the bits and pieces you'd
expect on Unix are in the default installation, the connections to
other Unices via ethernet, NFS and so on are fine.
And the Alpha is *so* *damn* *fast*!

>A colleague of mine wants to create a prototype turnkey
>system and is completely fed up with the weaknesses of NT.

Unless he absolutely needs to run MS Word or somesuch, the choice
should be obvious!

Bye,
Rob.
.-. Robert.Harley@inria.fr .-.
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`-' Linux - 500MHz Alpha - 256MB SDRAM `-'