On Thu, 2007-05-03 at 17:34 -0700, Abba Communications wrote:
Other than to scratch an itch, or to do some arch level engineering why would you even want to invest in an Alpha these days ?
Having said that, I want to add that we do have a functional CentOS-4 release on Alpha that I am running on my pws500u quite happily, but the Alpha, for me, is here for legacy and emotional reasons.
I understand what you are saying...
God willing, I am looking for a decent and affordable Alpha box that I might be able to purchase and contrib....
I am not up on current HP Alpha offerings... their website appears to show that it is still in serious production...
Ummmm my experience and understanding is that mid and high end Alpha processors were one of, if not the best ever designed and implemented.
The Alpha architecture will be phased out, and HP has ceased selling new Alpha machines:
"May 2007: HP has ceased accepting orders for new Alpha Systems as of April 27, 2007."
Source: http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/
So, I think the question is whether good and fast hardware will still be available easily the next seven years, and whether someone will commit him/herself to maintain it for seven years. But that's up to the CentOS team.
At any rate, I agree with Karanbir, Alpha will mostly be a curiousity. But I don't think (m)any new Alpha machines are being deployed.
-- Daniel