I've just put most of a new NetBSD/Alpha snapshot up on
ftp.netbsd.org, at:

	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/alpha

It's available via sup, as well, and should be showing up at sup and
ftp mirrors over the next few days.  I omitted bin/x11.tar.gz, because
of lack of space on the server.  That will be fixed in a few days,
hopefully, when the server's 9G disk is replaced...

A list of files in the distribution is below.  Supported hardware
includes:
	DEC 3000 family, but this has NOT BEEN TESTED RECENTLY, and
		no bugs will have been fixed.  I've tested the kernel
		as far as root device selection, but that was the best
		I could do, for now.
	AlphaStation 200 systems.
	AlphaStation 400 systems.
	AlphaStation 600 systems, but the built-in SCSI controllers
		do not work.  If you wish to use the AlphaStation 600
		with NetBSD, you will need either to boot diskless, or
		to get an NCR 53c810 SCSI controller.

I expect that AlphaStation 250 systems will work, as well, but i've
not tested it.

New and improved items, from the last release:
	(1) improved bcopy() and bzero() support (from Trevor
		Blackwell at Harvard),
	(2) updated toolchain sources,
	(3) working 'install -s' -- distribution binaries are now
		stripped,
	(4) updated X11 binaries, based on the XFree86 3.1.2
		distribution, included on the distribution disk
		image.  Unfortunately, still no X server; just
		clients.
	(5) working interrupt counters,
	(6) mostly working GDB support (thanks in part to John
		Birrell).  Unfortunately, GDB doesn't properly
		deal with local variables and function arguments,
		but it can run properly on live processes and
		core files, and is at least for getting stack
		traces.
	(7) user-land is now compiled with -O.  I still don't compile
		kernels with -O, for fear of compiler bugs --
		ask me for more details of the problems i've seen,
		if you want to know...  I've not really investigated
		the problems yet, though.

Things that I hope to get to in the relatively near future:
	(1) support for the ZLXp-E2 and -E3 32-bit (TGA-family) frame
		buffers, with help from Jason Thorpe.
	(2) various maintenance issues, for the DEC 3000 family
		machines.
	(3) an X server, for AlphaStation systems with ZLXp-E1
		(TGA-family) frame buffers.
	(4) making the kernel compile reliably with -O.
	(5) fixing boot device selection code, so that it actually
		works.
	(6) KGDB support.

If anybody would like to take on any of those tasks, feel free to get
in touch.

I've been remiss in responding to e-mail for the last week or so.  My
e-mail delivery has been rather bursty, and i've not had time to get
to it when it's been delivered.  8-)  I hope to answer various
questions people have asked this week...

I've yet to update the WWW server with information about the new
distribution, but i hope to do that this week, as well.


Enjoy!


later,

chris
=========================================================================
$NetBSD: README.files,v 1.1 1995/10/16 04:55:16 cgd Exp $

README.files			This list.

Files are organized by release, numbered by year, month, and date, in
the form: YYMMDD

In each directory:

README				Installation notes; probably incomplete.
STATUS				Status of NetBSD/Alpha.
TODO.users			Things that I think users could do to help out.

bin/				Directory with binaries for this snapshot.

	bin.tar.gz		Everything on the disk image except /etc,
				/usr/X11R6, and the kernel.
	etc.tar.gz		/etc from the disk image.
	netbsd.gz		Gzipped GENERIC kernel (also on disk image).
	netbsd.gdb.gz		Gzipped GENERIC kernel w/debugging symbols.
	netbsd_nfs.gz		Gzipped GENERIC_NFS kernel.
	netbsd_nfs.gdb.gz	Gzipped GENERIC_NFS kernel w/debugging symbols.
	rz25-image.gz		Disk image, of an RZ25, for installation.
	x11.tar.gz		/usr/X11R6 from the disk image.

src/				Directory with sources for this snapshot.

	X11R6-XF86-3.1.2-diffs.gz
				Diffs from XFree86 3.1.2 used to make the
				X11 binaries in the distribution.
	cygnus.tar.gz		Toolchain (gcc, gas, ld, etc.) sources
				used to build the compiler toolchain.
	sys.tar.gz		Kernel sources.
	userland-diffs.gz	Diffs from the NetBSD-current user-land
				sources used to build the distribution.