Careful w/ firmware if you've never upgraded it before. My first Alpha was an 
AlphaStation 255/300, and I accidentally "upgraded" the AlphaBIOS which got rid of 
the SRM console (necessary for UNIX and VMS) and replaced it with AlphaBIOS (for 
*shudder* Windows NT). It was a pain in the rear to get things back to SRM once I 
finally realized what was wrong and how to go about fixing it.

- wes

---- Original Message ----
From:		Antti Kantee
Date:		Tue 5/1/01 0:43
To:		Ray Phillips
Cc:		port-alpha@netbsd.org
Subject:	Re: AlphaStation 255

On Wed Apr 25 2001 at 21:51:43 +1000, Ray Phillips wrote:
> I'm thinking of installing NetBSD onto an AlphaStation 255 (which I haven't
> purchased yet) and have a couple of questions, please.
> 
> 1) Are the two know hardware bugs listed for this machine at
>    http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/alpha/models.html#alphastation-200,250,255,400
>    (viz. 32bpp frame buffers are not currently supported, and the
>    53c810 driver is buggy) still present in NetBSD 1.5?
> 2) If so, how much does the 53c810 problem affect the normal running of the
>    system?

I have one 255/300 running NetBSD. There are no problems with it. Some
people said that the old ncr driver had issues, but I never encountered
them. The new siop driver works even better, so you should not even
theoretically run into problems.

At least the TGA2 framebuffer has been supported for a long time now.
I'm happily running X on the alpha.

> 3) Is there anything to watch out for when upgrading the firmware?

Not really I guess. Just don't trip on the power cord while you're at it
;)

-- 
Antti Kantee <pooka@iki.fi>          v          Of course he runs NetBSD
http://www.iki.fi/pooka/             i            http://www.NetBSD.org/