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Hello, |
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|
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Our build and testing machine which was graciously hosted for free for |
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many years has been decommissioned. I had planned to host an |
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AlphaServer ES47 and a DS20L at a local university, but the DS20L blew |
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a capacitor and the ES47 has never been stable enough to warrant using |
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it for much more than a personal testing machine. I personally have |
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other machines (UP1500, PC164{,LX,BX,SX}, DP264) but they're not ideal |
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for building installation media and offering remote build testing |
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access to multiple developers. I also have 2x 600MHz DS10Ls which |
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could presumably be hosted at OSUOSL, but again, single CPU 600MHz |
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systems are pretty useless as a replacement for our quad-CPU ES40. |
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|
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Ideally we'd have the DS20L fixed and the ES47 stabilized and then |
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continue using them. That would require: |
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|
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(1) I would be able to replace the capacitors on the DS20L and have it |
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working again, but I tried and the new ones blew up too, so that's |
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evidently just a symptom of the problem and not the problem itself. |
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Electrical engineering advice required if this is to be fixed. |
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|
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(2) I would be able to figure out what's causing the ES47 to be |
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unstable. It seems to lock up under load but I haven't really made |
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much progress beyond that. |
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|
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So we're considering various options. Should we stop alpha support all |
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together? Should we replace stable alpha keywords with ~alpha? Should |
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we make the alpha profiles unstable and allow dependency breakage? |
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Should we try to find another suitable build machine and host it? |
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|
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I guess the answer to some of these will depend on how many |
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Gentoo/alpha users there are. I personally would like to keep alpha |
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support alive, while reducing the amount of work to keep it going. |
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|
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So, do we have users? Do they have opinions? Can they offer help? |
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|
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Thanks, |
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Matt |