Speakup kernels on Alpha

[Debee Norling]

Does anyone on the list have experience with Speakup on Dec Alpha machines?
I googled around a bit and discovered that 'way back in 1999, Janina was
asking for help getting an Alpha machine running -- but that was probably
pre-speakup.

I have a Dec Multia (UDB)   that my fiance purchased at a flea market. He's
a bit tired of watching me install Linux on old PCS because in his opinion,
old PCS don't have any character.

So I humored him, and attempted to install Debian on the Multia. But the
Debian rescue.bin floppy ignores the console=ttyS0 parameter, even though
the documentation claims this will work.

So if someone has Alpha experience, I would ask them if I could compile a
Speakup-enabled kernel for my Multia on my PC, or if they knew where I could
get a rescue boot disk already built.

The Multia, is indeed pretty cool. When booted, it auto-detects an attached
terminal so all BIOS (it's called ARC or SRM in Alpha) output is sent to the
terminal. So you don't need sighted help to do bios-setting stuff. But he's
more of a hardware nut than I am so I'm mostly doing this to keep him happy.
He has an old PDP-1173 too so maybe I'll just install some old BSD image on
it if I can't get access to the Multia.


       --   Debee
(Deborah Norling)
Alternate Media Specialist
DeAnza College
Phone: 408-864-5815
       <MailTo: norlingdeborah at fhda.edu>