Alpha/Linux Wiki

Corrections and new material are welcome. This page describes how to get an account and the conventions the wiki's pages follow.

Anyone can read the wiki, but editing needs an account, and self-registration is disabled to keep out spam. To request an account, open an issue in alphalinux/issues on GitHub, or message mattst88 in #alpha on Libera.Chat, giving:

• your name,
• your email address, to which the account's password is sent, and
• which Alpha systems you have.

The wiki's maintainer, Matt Turner, creates accounts by hand. Issues and #alpha are public; if you would rather not post your email address there, say so and send it privately instead. Each account has a user page under user:, which can say who you are and what you work on.

Small corrections can also be sent without an account, in #alpha on Libera.Chat, on the linux-alpha mailing list, or in GitHub Discussions (see Community): say which page, what is wrong, and the source for the correct information.

The wiki is DokuWiki. Every edit is committed to a git repository, where it can be reviewed and reverted. Content is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

• Documentation: how to install, run, and develop for Linux on Alpha, and how the architecture differs from others. Guides such as Installation and QEMU give instructions; reference pages such as Porting explain.
• Hardware and software: one page per system, motherboard, firmware, boot loader, and operating system, with what is known about each and the sources for it.
• History: the companies, people, lists, and distributions of Alpha and Alpha/Linux.
• News: dated one-line entries for notable changes, such as merged patches and releases, on News, which the front page includes.
• Tasks: the To Do list and Bugs.

• Write in encyclopedic style. State facts plainly, in the third person, without "we" or "you" outside the step-by-step guides and this page. Prefer the past tense for history and the present tense for what is still true.
• Write for today's reader. Pages should help someone running or developing Linux on Alpha now. Historical detail belongs on the history pages; other pages keep it only when it still helps a present-day reader. Long-fixed bugs, old distribution workarounds, and settled mailing list debates usually do not.
• State facts, not who said them. Write "The XL needs MILO", with the mailing list message in the footnote, rather than "In 2004, Jay Estabrook said that the XL needs MILO". Attribute a statement in the text only when it is an opinion or is disputed.
• Cite a source for every fact that is not common knowledge, with a footnote directly after the sentence it supports. Footnotes use the refnotes syntax, for example:

  [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/axp-list-mbox/1998-July.mbox#L37024|"Re: SMP for AlphaServer?"]], Jay Estabrook, axp-list, 14 Jul 1998)]

  A mailing list citation gives the subject, author, list, and date, and links to the message in the mailing list archives, at the line where the message starts. A manual gives its title and page, and links to the PDF in the wiki's media, as {{wiki:path:file.pdf?linkonly|Title}}. A kernel commit gives its subject and the release it appeared in.

• Record conflicts rather than resolving them silently. When sources disagree, the page gives the account the evidence supports, and lists the other sources, with short quotes, in a section titled "Conflicting information" at the end. Keep each entry short, and list only real disagreements, not sources that merely add detail.
• Use US spelling, one space after a full stop, and no em dashes. Write dates as "14 Jul 1998" in citations and "14 July 1998" in text, and binary sizes as KiB, MiB, and GiB.
• Name things as the sources do: Alpha, not AXP, except in product names; processors by EV name with the part number on first mention, as in "EV56 (21164A)"; system names with their codename (AlphaServer ES40, Clipper); motherboards by their marketing names (AlphaPC 164LX), with the kernel's platform names (LX164) only in kernel context.
• Mark key presses with the keyboard plugin: <key>C-c</key> for Ctrl-C, and <key>Esc</key> <key>Esc</key> for a sequence. C, S, and A alone mean Ctrl, Shift, and Alt, so write letter keys in lowercase. Put text typed at a prompt in ''monospace''.
• Call the port Alpha/Linux, not Linux/Alpha or Alpha Linux, except in quoted titles and product names. "Linux on Alpha" is fine in ordinary prose.

• Page names are lowercase, with words separated by underscores, in a namespace: hardware:systems:clipper, software:boot_loaders:aboot, documentation:porting:floating_point.
• New system and motherboard pages start from a template with an infobox; creating a page in hardware:systems or hardware:motherboards fills it in. The infobox fields are explained in the template.
• Tag each page at the end with {{tag>...}}, using the tags of similar pages.
• Manuals, data sheets, and photographs go in the media manager, under the same namespace as the page that uses them, for example wiki:hardware:systems:alphaserver_es40. Upload only documents that may be redistributed.
• Some pages date quickly. Current Status states the month it describes, which is updated whenever the page is, and completed tasks on the To Do list are removed once the release that includes them is out.
• A news entry is one table row in News, newest first: the date, what changed, with a link to the patch or release, who did the work, and, when known, the release that will include it.

• DokuWiki syntax
• FAQ and Glossary