Subject: MIPS64

From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 14:15:04 +0200

Hi,

as those who are tracking the CVS archive or the commit mailing list
probably already have seen I've got started to work on a 64-bit kernel.
I'm also using the chance to do a major overhaul of various code which
over the years had turned into a major uglyness.

In particular the machine abstraction layer needs some overhaul.
Basically the attempt of doing generic kernels for MIPS is dead by now.
Given the number of different firmware implementations and memory layouts
makes it impossible to build a single generic kernel image that fits
more than a few machines.  In fact so far the only combo that was working
at all was Magnum 4000 / PICA / RM200C.  So I'm wiping out all that code
which makes things look significantly nicer.

As of now the MIPS64 code is still in it's very early stages; it doesn't
even compile.  However I'd like to invite other people to alreasy start
working on porting the machine specific bits to MIPS64.  I myself will
initially only implement support for the SGI IP22.  When this one is
running flawless I'll go on with IP27 and SMP support.

Even though I've invested a horrible amount of time int tracking down
the bugs in current binutils they're still in a rather sad state for
64-bit stuff.  Volunteers _urgently_ wanted.  Note that these problems
will also affect other operating system, so it doesn't necessarily have
to be a Linux volunteer.

Cheers,

  Ralf

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From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 23:17:48 +0200

On Sun, Aug 22, 1999 at 04:58:33PM -0400, Bradley D. LaRonde wrote:

> Good news.  I think this is a good move, especially if a flood of new ports
> to new device starts pouring in from our project (LinuxCE).  There are
> already three new platoforms and two new processors on the drawing board
> now.

Note that it's not compeltly impossible, just unattractive to make a
generic kernel.  So if necessary we can do it.

  Ralf

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From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 00:28:31 +0200

On Sun, Aug 22, 1999 at 06:12:25PM -0400, Bradley D. LaRonde wrote:

> I'm also thinking that platform-specifc kernels will be smaller and
> potentially faster (less indirection), which is especially important on
> platforms like the Clio and Cassiopea.

For many systems we cannot drop all indirections.  For example the Indy
shipped with a large number of CPU options, each of which we have an
optimized routine for.

  Ralf

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From: Fernando Cela Diaz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 01:16:17 +0200 (MET DST)

Do Linux for MIPS have a working X Server?

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From: Andreas Jaeger <[email-masked]>
Date: 23 Aug 1999 16:28:54 +0200

>>>>> Ralf Baechle writes:

 > over the years had turned into a major uglyness.
Could anybody provide me with infos about the commit mailing list?  I
couldn't find the information myself:-(.

Thanks,
Andreas
-- 
 Andreas Jaeger   [email-masked]    [email-masked]
  for pgp-key finger [email-masked]

---

From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 00:09:37 +0200

> couldn't find the information myself:-(.

Yep, because it's not documented.  The mailing list is a plain
sendmail alias.  But I think you can also subscribe to it by

echo "subscribe linux-progress" | mail [email-masked]

  Ralf