On Tue, Feb 15, 2000 at 01:07:52PM -0700, Miles Nordin wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Feb 2000, Guan Yang wrote:
> 
> > But the NetBSD FAQs suggest that this is not possible; perhaps only
> > Linux can boot from IDE on Multia?
> 
> ergh.  thanks for saying ``weird.''  I'm only gradually losing sensitivity
> to comments of this form.  Anyway the deal is this all depends on your
> console code.  Linux can use AlphaBIOS or srm, while NetBSD requires srm.
> The reasons why are stated here:
> 
>  http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/alpha/faq.html#milo
> 
> This requirement is very unlikely to change in the future.
> 
> You can try downloading and upgrading to the latest srm (URL's are
> available in the Alpha FAQ) and see if that supports IDE booting.  I know
> IDE boot support was added to the srm for some of the 21164 systems in
> later revisions.  If this works for you, let us know and point us to the
> part of the FAQ you read so we can document what you did.

I've been meaning to check this myself: see if the later SRM consoles
for the Multia can make use of IDE devices. It does seem unlikely
though. The Multia SRMs all date from circa 1996 or so, and there was
no support for IDE in Digital UNIX or VMS in that timeframe. They
probably only added it to the 21164 SRM for CDROM support.

Graham