[Simh] Slightly off topic: UNIX for Alpha?

[Gary Lee Phillips]

Not precisely on topic here, I know. But this list shares a lot of relevant
knowledge and experience and I have easy access, so I'm asking. Please
forgive the distraction.

I am a fairly active user of a Digital Personal Work Station (PWS) and
generally run OpenVMS on it. I have a body of my own code for amateur radio
antenna and signal modeling, etc. written primarily in Fortran. Looking at
this unhappy end-of-life situation for hobbyist OpenVMS, I'm wondering if
there is a UNIX available for that processor that doesn't require me to
purchase an expensive license.

Linux would also be acceptable, but the only Linux I found a couple of
years ago that supported the Alpha was Gentoo, and that one didn't work all
that well. It had no graphical interface, for one thing. I am familiar with
UNIX and shell commands, that's not a problem. However, I do make use of
graphical output and having no working XWindows is an issue. Debian used to
have an Alpha port, but apparently that is no longer supported. There was a
Windows NT for Alpha and I even have a copy, but it's very old and limited,
and I have no Fortran or C compiler for it.

DEC's own Tru64 UNIX would probably be ideal, but I have no idea whether it
can be obtained any more or will run without an unobtainable license key.
Any UNIX or UNIX-like system that can run GNU compilers or similar will
probably work for me.

Any thoughts on this? Comments welcome. Thanks.

Gary, K9NZI
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