Thomas> i have got one of these early dec axp pc's (sold to
Thomas> developers in these first days of windows nt, i think dec pc
Thomas> 200 was the name) with an eisa bus and an adaptec 1740 disk
Thomas> controller plus some vga compatible graphics card. this
Thomas> machine is running WindowsNT. fine.
This sounds like a Jensen---which is the type of box that Linus is
currently using. The kernel therefore should work.
Thomas> -does linux (BLADE ?) support this machine ?
>From what I saw, BLADE is currently configured for Noname only (it is
likely that there will be generic kernels in the future that will work
on any Alpha box, but we are not there yet). However, you are not
completely out of luck: as long as you can get your hands on a kernel
configured for the Jensen, I'd assume that the rest of BLADE would
work just fine. But Jim certainly knows best.
Thomas> -if yes: can linux coexist with nt on this box ?
The main problem with NT and Linux coexistence is the PALcode. Unless
your system has enough ROM-space to accomodate both the OSF/1 and NT
firmware at the same time, switching between NT and Linux (or OSF/1)
would require loading the appropriate firmware into the FLASH ROM
(i.e., not something you wanna do on a daily basis).
--david