updating firmware, installing gentoo on alpha, etc.

I just picked up an old alphastation 500 on ebay and I'd like to
install gentoo on it.  I've read over the handbook, but I have a few
questions.

- I'd like mess around with xorg on alpha.  I'm running srm 6.7-2 and
it won't post my pci radeon rv250, so for the time being I have an old
s3 virge in there.  does anyone have any experience with the newer srm
(7.2) and radeon cards?  I've heard arc/alphabios is better at posting
video cards.  Is there any truth to that?  Also I seem to recall
having read somewhere that milo or aboot will also post video cards if
srm can't.  Is this true?

- How does one upgrade the srm?  I've not be able to find any
particularly clear instructions anywhere.  DEC/Compaq/HP's
instructions seem to be about all there are and they are pretty vague.
 They all talk about some firmware/sdk cdrom that you can boot to
upgrade.  I haven't been able to find such a disc anywhere.  Can I
just burn the fireware update .exe and .sys files to cdrom, or is some
special preparation required?

- stage 1/2 vs 3.  have much of an improvement can I expect with ev5
binaries vs ev4?  is it worth the extra time to do a stage 1/2 build?

- how is 2.6.x kernel support on alpha?

Thanks!

Alex

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