XL-266 install

[trevor]

While rumaging through the old hardware pile at work, to my pleasant surprise 
I came across an Alpha XL-266 and would like to get Linux running on it.

I booted up the machine. Someone had, at one point, installed both Windows 
2000 and Windows NT4 but I am not able to boot either of these; in both cases 
they start to boot but then fail complaining about missing DLLs and so on.

I found the alphalinux.org site and tried to figure out how to get Linux on 
this machine but I wasn't successful so I'm hoping to catch some kind person 
here who might help.

After a few false starts it is my understanding that the only firmware I can 
use on this machine is the Windows NT ARC firmware, in other words, the 
option of using SRM doesn't exist for me. [One point of confusion for me so 
far: the documents say there are only 2 types of firmware, SRM and AlphaBIOS, 
so what is Windows NT ARC firmware and how does that fit in?]

I went to the "Alpha Systems Firmware" site 
[http://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware] and upgraded to the latest 
firmware for this machine model 4/xxx (which I believe is version 4.7x or 
something like that). That firmware download site mentioned something about 
AlphaXL Model 4/xxx and Model 5/xxx which is again confusing because I don't 
see anything anywhere on this machine to suggest model 4/xxx or model 5/xxx.

Based on what I've found out so far I'll need to use MILO to boot, so I tried 
to follow the MILO Miniloader HOWTO. I can't seem to find anywhere where I 
can find the required "linload.exe" file. Every link I find leads to sites 
that don't exist anymore. I'm not out of luck, am I?

I was able to find an XL-specific Milo image at 
[ftp://genie.ucd.ie/pub/alpha/milo], but all the other links from the "Alpha 
Miniloader HOWTO" are dead.

My current understanding is that I need to format a floppy (FAT) and copy both 
the XL-specific MILO and linload.exe onto it. But what after that I'm not 
sure. I've followed the instructions in the HOWTO to setup a Linux bootloader 
option in the firmware (so the menu item is ready to go) but as for getting 
the components for the floppy, what to do with them (is just copying them to 
the floppy sufficient?) and what else I need to do are still fuzzy.

Does MILO get installed to the system anywhere, or do I always need the floppy 
to boot?

I'm hoping someone can clarify these things for me.

Thank you for any and all help, and best regards,
	Trevor