> I was under the impression that Linux needed its own firmware to
> load, [ ... ]

Actually, i seem to recall that for a while now, Linux on the Alpha
needed either Milo (the Linux firmware) or the SRM console.

Certainly, it's supported the SRM console for a while now.


> is there any support for booting from
> floppy?

Not yet.

If you can put a disk image on a floppy, etc., you could probably boot
it.  The boot blocks use the SRM console callbacks to read the disk,
so you should be able to boot from floppy, but writing the floppy
image could be hard...  also, fitting a kernel on to the floppy could
be hard...  8-)


> Also, what is the terminal type of the built-in video console?

'sun'.


> And is there any chance we can get a smaller font?

"go for it!"  8-)

There's no other font supported, currently, but it shouldn't be too
hard to frob things for a different font.  See
arch/alpha/wscons/wscons_rfont.h for the font definition.



cgd