Yesterday I installed FreeBSD 5.3-RC2 on the Alphastation. The only problem was a usability problem, the kernel/loader didn’t tell me, that output was going to the serial console. I named it roberta, not sure why, the first name that came to my mind, that sounds like an old lady.
Kris has stopped the alpha package builds half a year ago because FreeBSD alpha was too unstable, but there are still a lot of people running FreeBSD alpha, so let’s see when i will see my first crash.
I am currently building a 5-STABLE world and I will build some packages later.
BTW 5.3 was finally released yesterday. Read about it on /. or heise.
2 thoughts on “My first FreeBSD-alpha and 5.3-RELEASE”
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The fact that the Alpha has a working serial console is considered a ‘good thing’. In fact, the lack of a serial console on x86 is what I hate most about it 🙂
I think you’ll have great fun with the Alpha. Lovely machines *grin*
– Philip
yeah, SRM and OpenFirmware really rule compared to BIOS
What I was pointing at, on my NetBSD alpha the kernel will write to the console that the Framebuffer is not supported and output will go to the serial console.
FreeBSD assumes the user already knows this. I did not, I was under the impression that since it has a normal VGA Adapter syscons should work.