===== Community History =====

This page describes the mailing lists and newsgroups where Alpha/Linux was discussed, most of them now closed, and the history of Gentoo's Alpha port. See [[:community|Community]] for the lists and channels still in use, [[:distributions|Distributions]] for the distributions past and present, and [[history:alphalinux.org|History of alphalinux.org]] for the site that hosted several of the lists below.

==== Mailing lists ====

The first Alpha/Linux mailing list was Digital's own. Jim Paradis announced **linux-axp@amt.tay1.dec.com** in November 1994, [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/comp-os-linux-announce-mbox/googlegroups-1994-November.mbox#L36280|"Linux/Alpha Progress Report - Part 2"]], Jim Paradis, comp.os.linux.announce, 18 Nov 1994)] and moved it to majordomo as **alpha-linux** in January 1995, replacing "the old, unreliable, hand-maintained list". [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/comp-os-linux-announce-mbox/googlegroups-1995-January.mbox#L2126|"ANNOUNCEMENT: Linux/Alpha Developers' Kit!"]], Jim Paradis, comp.os.linux.announce, 23 Jan 1995)] No archive of it is known to survive.

Several once-popular Alpha/Linux mailing lists are no longer hosted anywhere. The largest was **axp-list**, run by Red Hat from 22 November 1995 until its last message in February 2022, alongside the kernel-focused **axp-kernel-list**. Separate lists ran on alphalinux.org: **axp-hardware**, **axp-software**, **milo-list** (MILO development), and **high_perf** (High Performance Alpha/Linux). Mandrake ran **cooker-axp** for the Alpha port of its Cooker development branch.

Mirrors of all of these, reconstructed from Pipermail and MHonArc pages, Gmane, and Wayback Machine captures, are preserved at [[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives|alphalinux/mailing-list-archives]] on GitHub. The same repository holds a complete mbox archive of the Debian **debian-alpha** list, which lists.debian.org serves only as per-message HTML, and an archive of Gentoo's **gentoo-alpha** list. These two lists are still open; the table below covers them along with the closed lists.

^ List ^ Host ^ Coverage ^ Messages ^
| axp-list | Red Hat | November 1995 to February 2022 | 61,178 |
| axp-kernel-list | Red Hat | April 2002 to September 2003 | 137 |
| axp-hardware | alphalinux.org | December 1999 to September 2001 | 249 |
| axp-software | alphalinux.org | December 1999 to September 2001 | 116 |
| high_perf | alphalinux.org | November 1998 to November 2001 | 152 |
| milo-list | alphalinux.org | April 1999 to November 2001 | 89 |
| cooker-axp | Mandrake | July 2000 to November 2001 | 110 |
| debian-alpha | Debian | November 1995 to present | 19,902 |
| gentoo-alpha | Gentoo | December 2002 to present | 1,006 |

axp-kernel-list, for "Alpha kernel issues", was running by August 1998. [(>[[https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-list/1998-August/msg00060.html|"Mailing List Lists"]], listmaster@redhat.com, gtk-list, 3 Aug 1998)] No archive of it from before April 2002 is known to survive.

**gentoo-alpha** began on 17 December 2002. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/gentoo-alpha-mbox/2002-December.mbox#L1|"test"]], Sascha Schwabbauer, gentoo-alpha, 17 Dec 2002)] The port's developers also met on **#gentoo-alpha** on irc.freenode.net from at least February 2003. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/gentoo-alpha-mbox/2003-February.mbox#L62|"Re: Fw: Gentoo/Alpha"]], Aron Griffis, gentoo-alpha, 28 Feb 2003)] The list is still open but has carried little traffic since the mid-2010s. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/gentoo-alpha-mbox/2019-September.mbox#L266|"Re: [gentoo-alpha] Gentoo/Alpha is without a build machine"]], Don Wilburn, gentoo-alpha, 2 Sep 2019)]

=== DEC OSF/1 and Tru64 UNIX ===

The longest-lived Alpha mailing list was not about Linux. **alpha-osf-managers** was a list for system managers of Alpha systems running DEC OSF/1, run on Majordomo at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by Dave Sill, who also ran the older **decstation-managers** list. It was running by June 1993, [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/comp-unix-osf-misc-mbox/googlegroups-1993-June.mbox#L2772|"Re: Is there a newsgroup/e-mail for DEC's Alpha OSF machines ?"]], Dave Sill, comp.unix.osf.misc, 30 Jun 1993)] and the DEC OSF/1 FAQ pointed readers to it from its first posting. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/comp-unix-osf-osf1-mbox/googlegroups-1993-July.mbox#L5398|"comp.unix.ultrix DEC OSF/1 Frequently Asked Questions"]], Win Treese, comp.unix.osf.osf1, 2 Jul 1993)] In August 1995 Sill put archives of both lists, going back to October 1993, on ftp.ornl.gov. The surviving mirror of alpha-osf-managers begins in April 1994; the earlier messages are not in it. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/tru64-unix-managers-mbox/1995-August.mbox#L3412|"Official FTP archives available"]], Dave Sill, alpha-osf-managers, 29 Aug 1995)]

Answers went privately to the asker, who then posted a summary back to the list, so its archive reads as a series of questions and summaries. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/tru64-unix-managers-mbox/1995-July.mbox#L5571|"Alpha-OSF-Managers Policy Statement"]], Dave Sill, alpha-osf-managers, 18 Jul 1995)] Digital's engineers answered there too, most prolifically Tom Blinn of the UNIX Software Group, whose posts are the best surviving record of when each release of the operating system shipped (see [[software:operating_systems#tru64_unix|Tru64 UNIX]]).

The list followed the operating system's renames. It became **tru64-unix-managers** on 16 March 1999, with the old address to be disabled around 16 April. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/tru64-unix-managers-mbox/1999-March.mbox#L16680|"Administrivia: list name changed"]], Dave Sill, tru64-unix-managers, 16 Mar 1999)] It never formally closed. Traffic fell from about 3,300 messages in 2003 to a dozen in 2012 as members retired their last Alphas. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/tru64-unix-managers-mbox/gmane-2012-June.mbox#L113|"Farewell."]], Joe Fletcher, tru64-unix-managers, 28 Jun 2012)] The last message is dated 28 September 2012. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/tru64-unix-managers-mbox/gmane-2012-September.mbox#L1|"New disks on HSZ50 not usable"]], Ralf Borowski, tru64-unix-managers, 28 Sep 2012)]

^ List ^ Host ^ Coverage ^ Messages ^
| alpha-osf-managers, tru64-unix-managers | Oak Ridge National Laboratory | April 1994 to September 2012 | 56,084 |

=== Other operating systems ===

Alpha hardware and porting information may also be found in the [[https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-alpha/|FreeBSD Alpha]], [[https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-alpha/|NetBSD Alpha]], and [[http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-alpha|OpenBSD Alpha]] mailing lists. These three lists are mirrored in the same [[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives|archive repository]]. They are the best surviving record of the parts of Alpha that Linux shares with the BSDs: PALcode and console behavior, chipset errata, unaligned access and floating-point trap handling.

^ List ^ Project ^ Coverage ^
| freebsd-alpha | FreeBSD | January 1998 to December 2010 |
| port-alpha | NetBSD | January 1996 to present |
| alpha (openbsd-alpha) | OpenBSD | September 2001 to present |

FreeBSD retired its Alpha port after the 6.x series and closed the list at the end of 2010. The NetBSD and OpenBSD lists are still active.

**alphant**, the Windows NT on Alpha mailing list, covered the same hardware as the Linux lists, and Digital's own engineers answered questions on it much as they did on axp-list. Aaron Sakovich started it in September 1995 at Net Results, an Internet provider in Huntsville, Alabama; [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/alphant-mbox/1995-September.mbox#L29|"Welcome message & list information"]], Aaron Sakovich, alphant, 18 Sep 1995)] it later moved to Allen-Bradley and, in October 1998, to Peter Lizon's alphant.com. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/alphant-mbox/1998-October.mbox#L3074|"Moving over?"]], Dan Schwartz, alphant, 29 Oct 1998)] Every host is gone, and only what the Wayback Machine captured survives.

^ List ^ Host ^ Coverage ^ Messages ^
| alphant | Net Results, Allen-Bradley, Lizon Corporation | September 1995 to July 1996, October 1998 to April 2000 | 2,225 |

==== Newsgroups ====

Usenet carried Alpha discussion from the early 1990s; the main groups are listed in the table below. [[https://groups.google.com/group/linux.debian.ports.alpha|linux.debian.ports.alpha]] was also a gateway to the debian-alpha mailing list.

Digital ran two moderated groups of its own, **biz.digital.announce** for press releases and fact sheets and **biz.digital.articles** for the //Customer Update// product announcements. Both carried the company's own descriptions of Alpha hardware as it shipped, and both are useful for dating and specifying machines that the surviving manuals do not cover. Neither ran for as long as the archives suggest: the last real //Customer Update// article is from December 1995 and the last press release from April 1997, and everything the archives hold after that is spam.

Announcements of Alpha ports, kits and distributions were posted to **comp.os.linux.announce**, which is where Digital's early Alpha/Linux work was made public.

comp.os.linux.alpha was created in 1997 on David Mosberger-Tang's proposal, which sought "a focused and vendor-neutral place for discussing issues related to Linux on Alpha". [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/comp-os-linux-announce-mbox/googlegroups-1997-April.mbox#L4252|"RFD: comp.os.linux.alpha"]], David Mosberger, comp.os.linux.announce, 26 Apr 1997)] The vote closed on 30 June 1997 and passed 687 to 9. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/comp-os-linux-announce-mbox/googlegroups-1997-July.mbox#L1|"RESULT: comp.os.linux.alpha passes 687:9"]], David Bostwick, comp.os.linux.announce, 2 Jul 1997)]

DEC OSF/1 had its own groups, **comp.unix.osf.osf1** and **comp.unix.osf.misc**, which also covered OSF/1 on other vendors' hardware. The DEC OSF/1 FAQ was posted to comp.unix.osf.osf1 and comp.sys.dec from 1993 to 1995. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/comp-unix-osf-osf1-mbox/googlegroups-1993-July.mbox#L5398|"comp.unix.ultrix DEC OSF/1 Frequently Asked Questions"]], Win Treese, comp.unix.osf.osf1, 2 Jul 1993)] [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/comp-unix-osf-osf1-mbox/googlegroups-1995-August.mbox#L8638|"DEC OSF/1 AXP Frequently Asked Questions"]], Steve Lionel, comp.unix.osf.osf1, 21 Aug 1995)]

comp.unix.tru64 was created in March 2000 by renaming comp.unix.osf.osf1, and comp.unix.osf.misc was removed at the same time. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/comp-unix-osf-misc-mbox/googlegroups-2000-March.mbox#L2139|"RESULT: comp.unix.tru64 rename and removal of comp.unix.osf.misc pass"]], Neil Crellin, comp.unix.osf.misc, 21 Mar 2000)]

Google Groups stopped carrying new Usenet posts in February 2024, so these links serve historic content only. Mbox archives of all nine groups, built from the Internet Archive's ''usenet-comp'' and ''usenet-biz'' collections and as complete as those collections allow, are kept alongside the mailing lists in [[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives|alphalinux/mailing-list-archives]].

^ Newsgroup ^ Topic ^ Coverage ^ Messages ^
| [[https://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.alpha/topics|comp.os.linux.alpha]] | Linux on Alpha | August 1997 to May 2013 | 29,127 |
| [[https://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.dec/topics|comp.sys.dec]] | Digital computers | April 1990 to May 2013 | 108,195 |
| [[https://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.vms/topics|comp.sys.vms]] | OpenVMS, including Alpha hardware | January 1990 to September 2004 (sparse) | 876 |
| [[https://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.tru64/topics|comp.unix.tru64]] | Tru64 UNIX, including Alpha hardware | April 2000 to March 2013 | 14,500 |
| comp.unix.osf.osf1 | DEC OSF/1 | December 1992 to September 2004 | 31,641 |
| comp.unix.osf.misc | DEC OSF/1 | October 1992 to July 2004 | 6,090 |
| comp.os.linux.announce | Linux announcements, including Alpha ports and distributions | April 1993 to May 2013 | 13,052 |
| biz.digital.announce | Digital press releases | May 1994 to April 1997 (spam only to May 2005) | 750 |
| biz.digital.articles | Digital //Customer Update// articles | April 1994 to December 1995 (spam only to April 2004) | 771 |

==== The Gentoo Alpha port ====

Gentoo's Alpha port has always been small. In February 2003 it had three developers, Bjoern Brauel, Will Woods, and Aron Griffis, and the port stalled whenever all three were busy at their jobs. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/gentoo-alpha-mbox/2003-February.mbox#L1656|"Re: Fw: Gentoo/Alpha"]], Aron Griffis, gentoo-alpha, 25 Feb 2003)] Its stage tarballs were built for the EV5, for compatibility. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/gentoo-alpha-mbox/2003-February.mbox#L62|"Re: Fw: Gentoo/Alpha"]], Aron Griffis, gentoo-alpha, 28 Feb 2003)] Tavis Ormandy joined in April 2003, bringing ebuilds for the Compaq C and C++ compilers. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/gentoo-alpha-mbox/gmane-2003-April.mbox#L683|"new dev: taviso"]], Aron Griffis, gentoo-alpha, 14 Apr 2003)]

The first Alpha LiveCD built with Gentoo's ''catalyst'' tool came from Jay Maynard in February 2004, with separate kernels for normal use, for systems booting with MILO, and for the Jensen. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/gentoo-alpha-mbox/2004-February.mbox#L3612|"[gentoo-alpha] Alpha LiveCD available for testing"]], Jay Maynard, gentoo-alpha, 27 Feb 2004)] Bryan Østergaard (kloeri) took over release building in August 2004 [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/gentoo-alpha-mbox/2004-August.mbox#L696|"Re: [Fwd: Re: [gentoo-alpha] Problems running bootstrap.sh]"]], Jay Maynard, gentoo-alpha, 3 Aug 2004)] and led the port for the next few years. The port dropped the Compaq Java runtime and development kit in July 2006, leaving Alpha without a full Java implementation, [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/gentoo-alpha-mbox/2006-July.mbox#L485|"[gentoo-alpha] The end of compaq java. Current Gentoo/Alpha java situation."]], Jose Luis Rivero, gentoo-alpha, 13 Jul 2006)] and ended 2.4 kernel support on 19 January 2008, after every other Gentoo architecture team. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/gentoo-alpha-mbox/2008-January.mbox#L1|"[gentoo-alpha] End of 2.4 support in Gentoo/Alpha"]], Jose Luis Rivero, gentoo-alpha, 19 Jan 2008)]

In September 2019 the port lost its build machine, a quad-CPU ES40 that had been hosted without charge for many years. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/gentoo-alpha-mbox/2019-September.mbox#L1|"[gentoo-alpha] Gentoo/Alpha is without a build machine"]], Matt Turner, gentoo-alpha, 1 Sep 2019)] Every ''alpha'' keyword became ''~alpha'' on 25 January 2020, [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/gentoo-alpha-mbox/2020-January.mbox#L90|"[gentoo-alpha] [RFC] News item: Stable alpha keywords removed"]], Matt Turner, gentoo-alpha, 21 Jan 2020)] and the Alpha profiles were demoted to experimental on 17 May 2022, so as not to hold back the Python team. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/gentoo-alpha-mbox/2022-May.mbox#L1|"[gentoo-alpha] alpha profiles demoted to experimental"]], Matt Turner, gentoo-alpha, 17 May 2022)] They were restored to stable on 10 August 2024. [(>[[https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/commit/?id=a507b96e70392fb7055a212fb39bda0bdff760df|"profiles: mark alpha as stable"]], Matoro Mahri, gentoo.git, 10 Aug 2024)]

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