Subject: Linux on Indigo2 (IP28) - R10000

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 19:52:31 +0200

Hi All.
I just got my hands on an old SGI Indigo2 and I would like to install Linux
on it (preferably Debian). I've searched a few places and I get contradicting
signals on whether this might work or not. The machine is an Indigo2 (IP28)
175MHz R10000.

I've tried booting over the net using bootp and tftp following the instructionsin
the debian-howto.. The machine gets an IP and immediately writes "execute
format error" (using the r4k-ip22/tftpboot.img image). I'm guessing that
this is and 32/64 bit problem, but I really haven't got a clue. I found
an other image looking like it might be a 64 bit image (from Kumba, the
Gentoo guy), it downloads and then freezes the machine.

Can anybody give me some hints here: what I'm I suppose to do? Will this
ever work? I don't really care about installation method (network, cd, etc).
There was some talk in Febuary on a guy got Linux up and running on an Origin
200 - and some bootable cd's. That sounded prety interesting =]

Btw: I also got my hands on an Octane (IP30) with an R10000 (195 Mhz) -
I haven't tried to install on this one, but that might be interesting too..

--
Regards Martin Leopold.
Dept. of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen

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From: Thiemo Seufer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 20:11:00 +0200

> signals on whether this might work or not. The machine is an Indigo2 (IP28)

I have such a machine, too. Short summary: It won't work yet.

> this is and 32/64 bit problem, but I really haven't got a clue.

That's because the R10000 Firmware wnats only ELF64 objects.

> I found

Some SGI uniprocessor R10000 machines are non-I/O-coherent, specifically
the IP28 ans the IP32. The R10000 has a bug/performance feature which
leads to erraneously marked dirty cachelines, which wreaks havoc on those
machines for DMA transfers.

The solution is to use a special kernel with compiled in cache barriers
(needs a not-yet written compiler patch) and careful managing of page
table accesses from userspace (needs rmap, and thus 2.5 Kernel).

I'm working slowly on it, but I get constantly distracted by toolchain
issues. :-)

> 200 - and some bootable cd's. That sounded prety interesting =]

The Origin is easier to support, it has coherent I/O.

> I haven't tried to install on this one, but that might be interesting too..

This one is also I/O coherent, so chances are much better than for IP28.

Thiemo

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 20:38:19 +0200

Hi Thiemo.
> table accesses from userspace (needs rmap, and thus 2.5 Kernel).

I noticed this guy talking about O2 and having some patches and precompiled
kernels. Are these in anyway related to what you are talking about?

http://www.linux-mips.org/~glaurung/

> I'm working sowly on it, but I get constantly distracted by toolchain
> issues. :-)

I looked arround your website and saw "mips64-linux-ip28-2002-06-28.tar.gz"
whoo.. Sounds exiting =]

> > There was some talk in Febuary on a guy got Linux up and running on
an 
> > Origin 200 - and some bootable cd's. That sounded prety interesting
=]
> The Origin is easier to suppot, it has coherent I/O.

And you are probably going to tell me that this is the same reson that the
O2 is working, right?

> This one is also I/O coherent, so chances are much better than for IP28.

Are you saying I might get this one working with the Debian boot-images
that I already tried, or?

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 11:56:27 -0700

> This one is also I/O coherent, so chances are much better than for IP28.
And Keith Wesolowsky is even working on it. Only problem is complete absence
of documentation.

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From: Thiemo Seufer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 20:59:27 +0200

> http://www.linux-mips.org/~glaurung/

Partially yes, the O2 as a ELF32 machine allows a different (and more
performant) solution for the speculative store problem.

> I looked arround your website and saw "mips64-linux-ip28-2002-06-28.tar.gz"

I know it's somewhat outdated. :-)

> > > There was some talk in Febuary on a guy got Linux up and running on an
> > > Origin 200 - and some bootable cd's. That sounded prety interesting =]

Only the R5000 O2 is working. The R10000 O2 is the problematic one.

> that I already tried, or?

It might work, but I know way to little about the Octane to say something
definitive.

Thiemo

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From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 21:14:08 +0200

> It might work, but I know way to little about the Octane to say something

The Octane is yet unsupported but apprently architecturally very similar
to a single-node Origin 200 so supporting it shouldn't be too hard.  That
excludes the Octane's graphics subsystem about which I know nothing at all.

  Ralf

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From: "Erik J. Green" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 19:37:14 +0000

> that I already tried, or?

That's pretty unlikely.  I am currently working on the Octane in what little
spare time I can wrest away from work.  On the good side, the octane peripherals
seem generally the same as the Origin, so I'm finding a lot of similarities in
the hardware for console and network (IOC3 chip), for instance.  The memory map
is different though, which means that barring some kernel hacking you won't get
a kernel to boot on it from any existing boot image.  I haven't gotten to the
point of trying to make the video hardware work, although I do have a PCI
shoebox I might try a Radeon PCI card in eventually.

Feel free to join in hacking on it, you might be better at it than I am =)

Erik

-- 
Erik J. Green
[email-masked]

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From: Keith M Wesolowski <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 13:21:14 -0700

> And Keith Wesolowsky is even working on it. Only problem is complete absence

Well, for values of "working" that involve reading headers and
pondering, yeah.  We have the memory map from the irix headers;
otherwise as Ralf points out it should have been called Origin 100.
Getting a serial-only port going should not be terribly hard.  The
problem, as always, is finding time to work on these things.  Any of
you who are students will probably get to this long before we working
stiffs do, so have at it...

-- 
Keith M Wesolowski <[email-masked]> http://foobazco.org/~wesolows
------(( Project Foobazco Coordinator and Network Administrator ))------
	"May Buddha bless all stubborn people!"
				-- Uliassutai Karakorum Blake

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From: Martin Leopold <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 22:35:18 +0200

> I know it's somewhat outdated. :-)

Hehe.. I tried it, and it booted. Whopee.. However the kernel-level-IP 
configuration (BOOTP) fails!? I'm not really sure why - the DHCP server 
just gave the IP and kernel-image a moment ago. This make me wonder: 
how far could I get with this kernel? Is it possible that I could 
actually boot an entire system with this kernel, or is that pushing it 
a bit?

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From: Thiemo Seufer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 22:41:17 +0200

> actually boot an entire system with this kernel, or is that pushing it 

It happens to work by accident, because the cachelines destoyed
due to the speculative stores don't hit anything important. The
2.5 kernel fails much earlier.

Thiemo

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From: "Maciej W. Rozycki" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 13:06:51 +0200 (MET DST)

> 2.5 kernel fails much earlier.

 I recall fixing an IP checksum calculation bug in the 64-bit kernel last
year -- this may possibly be another reason of BOOTP failing (well, it
used to fail for me because of this problem back then).

-- 
+  Maciej W. Rozycki, Technical University of Gdansk, Poland   +
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
+        e-mail: [email-masked], PGP key available        +