G'day,

Please accept my apology for the the noise created on this mailing list
due to my previous email. I've tried to avoid this by setting the reply field
to my privat address and including an appropriate instruction in my email.

Considering that I've surrendered to the idea of purchasing a TGA card in
view to work around the xserver problem, I am very much taken by 
surprise with the response seen on the list.

Let me just reply in summary to some of the points raised in this 
discussion by various list members.

***Message 18/39  From Ross Harvey       , Oct 13, 99 08:26:00 pm -0700

>Option (1) is really too big a job given the resources we have and given
>that the much-easier kludge (2) gives us most of the functionality of (1).
>
>Option (2) was avoided previously because of purism (at least in part, I
>think) but for the record: I've made the decision that it is now OK for
>NetBSD/alpha to go this way. (Hehe.)

...I understand your predicament in making such a decision and I am
glad to see that the obsticals which prevented the development of a
xserver for standard pci-vga graphics cards are now removed.

Personally, I would rather have a working kludge than nothing at all.
I fail to see why NetBSD-alpha takes a special status when compared with 
Linux, FreeBSD or Digital Unix, all platforms which support standard
pci-vga. I installed RH-Linux und DEC Tru64 Unix just to verify
that it actually runs on my system with a Diamond Stealth 64.

I can't help of having the feeling, that the majority of those who
privately own DEC Alpha's with a standard VGA card wishing to run a free
operating system must have migrated to Linux or FreeBSD and those
who stuck to NetBSD are a group of elite individuals who enjoy playing
with "real" DEC Alpha Servers only requiring VT100 terminals... ;)

Why not seperating the servers into X-alpha for the purists 
and X-alpha-kludge for those with standard VGA graphic cards? With
this it should be possible to keep everyone concerned happy. 

***Message 16/39  From Chris G. Demetriou, Oct 13, 99 09:41:42 pm -0700

>I've never had any interest in working on option two.
>
> NetBSD is a user-supported system.  That means that if people want the
> feature, they should work on it...

...the same holds true for FreeBSD and Linux. The problem with 
user-supported systems is that the majority of users don't have the
required skill level to take on such a project and this includes me
too.

Considering that even the most skillful of system administrators
and software developers in our group make a big circle around this
issue, how can it be possible for someone with limited skills to
be expected to take on a project of this magnitude?

I am willing to spend time and effort in supporting this project to
the best of my ability and there must be others who think on the
same wavelength. Perhaps we can find one or two knowlegdeable guru's
who can take the bull by the horns making this project a success.

cheerio Berndt
-- 
Name    : Berndt Josef Wulf            | +++ With BSD on Packet Radio +++
E-Mail  : wulf@ping.net.au             |    tfkiss, tnt, dpbox, wampes
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