Re: Gentoo/Alpha is without a build machine

Matt Turner <[email protected]> writes:

> Hello,
>
> Our build and testing machine which was graciously hosted for free for
> many years has been decommissioned. I had planned to host an
> AlphaServer ES47 and a DS20L at a local university, but the DS20L blew
> a capacitor and the ES47 has never been stable enough to warrant using
> it for much more than a personal testing machine. I personally have
> other machines (UP1500, PC164{,LX,BX,SX}, DP264) but they're not ideal
> for building installation media and offering remote build testing
> access to multiple developers. I also have 2x 600MHz DS10Ls which
> could presumably be hosted at OSUOSL, but again, single CPU 600MHz
> systems are pretty useless as a replacement for our quad-CPU ES40.
>
> Ideally we'd have the DS20L fixed and the ES47 stabilized and then
> continue using them. That would require:
>
> (1) I would be able to replace the capacitors on the DS20L and have it
> working again, but I tried and the new ones blew up too, so that's
> evidently just a symptom of the problem and not the problem itself.
> Electrical engineering advice required if this is to be fixed.

Capacitors generally explode only from overvoltage.  Without seeing the
circuit, it's hard to give more specific advice.

> (2) I would be able to figure out what's causing the ES47 to be
> unstable. It seems to lock up under load but I haven't really made
> much progress beyond that.

Power supply?  Maybe a bad capacitor.

> So we're considering various options. Should we stop alpha support all
> together? Should we replace stable alpha keywords with ~alpha? Should
> we make the alpha profiles unstable and allow dependency breakage?
> Should we try to find another suitable build machine and host it?
>
> I guess the answer to some of these will depend on how many
> Gentoo/alpha users there are. I personally would like to keep alpha
> support alive, while reducing the amount of work to keep it going.
>
> So, do we have users? Do they have opinions? Can they offer help?

I have an Alpha with Gentoo, but I can't really say I use it.

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M=E5ns Rullg=E5rd