I've been looking around for possible alternatives to RedHat's
Linux-Alpha. There are others but I think RedHat is your best bet.
Also looked at the *BSD systems. I believe one of them did more
support for true DEC alpha systems. The problem with the *BSD's
though is they do not have as many device drivers. In fact, from
the web pages I saw, they don't have much XFree86 support either.
Working on a system without X is painful to me.
There are DEC people who support the milo code. Check the RedHat
axp-list archives at www.redhat.com. Also, check the comp.os.linux.alpha
newsgroup for info.
Good luck...
Wes