Subject: Re: GLIBC 2.2 should work on MIPS-Linux

From: Florian Lohoff <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 19:48:01 +0200

On Fri, Apr 21, 2000 at 10:30:21AM -0700, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
> I would appreciate if you could build glibc and test it really hard.
> I do expect problems in the following areas:
> - definitions don't match between kernel and glibc.  I've used the
>   latest 2.3 release.  The glibc will not run with Linux 2.0.x.

Linux 2.0 is low priority IMHO as there is a "Standalone" Mips
port for 2.0 mainly used for the cobalts which has nevern been really
developed much further. Nobody (except the embedded people) will
use the 2.0 series now (And the embedded will use a smaller
libc anyways)

Flo
-- 
Florian Lohoff		[email-masked]		      	+49-subject-2-change
"Technology is a constant battle between manufacturers producing bigger and
more idiot-proof systems and nature producing bigger and better idiots."

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From: Florian Lohoff <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 19:49:55 +0200

On Fri, Apr 21, 2000 at 10:40:36AM -0700, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

> Upps, I was to fast.  I should have added that the handling of
> floating point numbers seems to be quite broken.  I haven't had time
> to investigate whether this is a bug in glibc, kernel (at least
> partially - we do need a real FPU emulation!) or gcc.

A (full) FPU emulation is in the works and will soon appear on a cvs somewhere 
i was told :), so it will possibly available with kernel 2.4 and though be in
line with glibc 2.2. 

Flo

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From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 11:53:58 -0700

> use the 2.0 series now (And the embedded will use a smaller

2.0 is dead as far as my interest in it goes.  I'm however commited to
continue support for 2.2 even after 2.4 is finally out.

  Ralf

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From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 11:51:21 -0700

> partially - we do need a real FPU emulation!) or gcc.

To keep you people up to date on this - I've got free shopping for
the kernel FPU support software, that's is there are four solutions
available:

 - two different ones from IRIX which I'm allowed to recycle for Linux
 - the Algorithmics code which already has been integrated into Linux
   by MIPS.
 - Write something new that is based on include/math-emu/.

It used to be a relativly hard thing but it's no longer :-)

  Ralf

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From: Florian Lohoff <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 21:22:34 +0200

> It used to be a relativly hard thing but it's no longer :-)

Pick the good out of all ? :) Honestly - We should keep an eye on 
memory footprint as the embedded people will be very interested in this.

How much work would the IRIX ones be and what is the difference between
the two ? Are they probably available as they are right now to just
publish them and someone with a lot time may produce a superset for Linux ?

Flo

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From: Ulf Carlsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 13:04:09 -0700 (PDT)

> - binutils (use Ulf's version) and compiler (egcs 1.1.2 get internal
>   compiler errors in some cases).  I'm trying to get gcc 2.96 CVS
>   running but do appreciate your help in testing and fixing.

My binutils patch is here:

	oss.sgi.com /pub/linux/mips/src/binutils/binutils-000420.diff.gz

We're using Ralf's egcs 1.1.2 patch (from the rpms):

	oss.sgi.com /pub/linux/mips/src/egcs/egcs-1.1.2.diff.gz

Ulf

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From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 14:34:54 -0700

> publish them and someone with a lot time may produce a superset for Linux ?

There are two FP emulators in IRIX.  The first one is fairly old, was already
used in RISC/os and is written in assembler.  I'm not sure if it can
properly deal with MIPS IV.  It's successor is written in C and is what's
currently being used in IRIX, is pretty clean and maintainable code.  It
was clearly written with a heavily optimizing compiler such as SGI's in
mind and I assume that it won't perform well without major restructuring 
when compiled with GCC.  On the other side it's as far as I know the only
package that gets all the cornercases right.

  Ralf

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From: Florian Lohoff <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 09:18:46 +0200

> 	oss.sgi.com /pub/linux/mips/src/egcs/egcs-1.1.2.diff.gz

Ok - this combinations compiles an little endian dec mips kernel for
me - Ill try to boot it in a second :)

Flo