Well, it seems to be possible, assuming you at least have the OSF/1
firmware (PAL-code). Danny ter Haar seems to have done exactly that,
using the pre-compiled NoName kernel image and various binaries.
You probably need to "mkfs" and install the files etc from a i386 box,
and if you want to use the OSF/1 disklabel thing, you need to apply the
disklabel patches from the alpha-diffs to your x86 kernel and enable the
osf_disklabel recognition.
Now, with the Digital "BLADE" installation, you probably don't even need
to go to all the extremes, you should be able to boot up from floppies
like a normal x86 distribution.
> What support from OSF/1 does Linux/AXP rely on? Compiler, libraries,
> bootstrap code? Anything else?
Just the PAL-code and console bootup code. I use the DEC compilers etc,
but that doesn't mean that they are necessary.
> I'm assuming I'm going to have
> to get an alpha cross compilation environment up on my intel box,
> and get binutils work with OSF/1's native format - or at least
> something the bootstrap code can deal with. Has someone done
> this?
I don't think you can cross-compile: gcc seems to have problems
cross-compiling from a 32-bit environment to a 64-bit one (at least that
_used_ to be true). You'd need to depend on linux bootstrapping itself.
> I gather one can buy relatively cheap Alpha motherboards which can
> drop into a PC case and take normal PCI cards (the impression I
> get from reading the Alpha parts of the Linux source). Does anyone
> have experience with these sorts of boards; what works, what's
> broken, what is worth using?
Right now, only a few drivers have been cleaned up for alpha
consumption: the aha1740 scsi driver (EISA), the NCR SCSI driver and the
ide driver. Oh, and floppy.
And console/serial/psaux character devices.
> Have there been any thoughts about using ELF as an executable and
> object file format, or is the OSF/1 one going to be the sole format
> (I assume that even if ELF is adopted, keeping OSF/1 compatability
> is considered desirable).
I consider the OSF/1 COFF format to be the more important right now, if
only because that's already supported by gcc et co, and because it gives
the possibility of developing and testing under OSF/1. ELF is a "long
range" plan as far as I'm concerned (ie let's do it when the system is
stable, rather than now).
Linus