Subject: Porting of Linux on to a MIPS16 Processor. Help required

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 14:24:50 +0530

Hi,

I am new to linux.  I am  in need of porting linux to a MIPS16 based
processor.   I need some information regarding the porting. It will be a
great help if somebody could answer me.

1) Is there any port available already for this? If available how do i get
it along with the development environment.

2) If the port  is not available  then how much complex (How much effort ?)
is it to port it to MIPS 16.

3) Where can  I get the tool chain on windows and linux kernel source code
which can be used .

4)curently the board uses EJTAG for download and execute. We have a
uart(serial port) on the board which we use as console connected to the
hyperterminal on a windows pc.. There is no shell supported. We can compile
and run  applications on the target.

5) We have the existing BSP  and  custom drivers ported over a OS
abstraction layer. Once the kernel is ported we have to get the custom
drivers ported.

6) I would like to know how much would be  the code size for the kernel
alone with out any shell and with  the console driver. (Source code and
Binary)

Thanks in advance.

Warm Regards
Shiraz

---

From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 14:11:58 +0200

> 3) Where can  I get the tool chain on windows and linux kernel source code

You forgot to mention the exact processor type but anyway, MIPS16 is
really just an extension.  As such Linux can run on a system without
actually knowing anything about MIPS16.  Which is nice, if you intend to
actually exploit MIPS16 you don't have to have that working right away but
can introduce support later, as optimization for size.

Windows?  Good luck.  I've seen success reports with Cygwin but if you want
to keep things sane, use a Linux box for development.

> alone with out any shell and with  the console driver. (Source code and

To my knowledge nobody has used MIPS16 for Linux so far.  There seems
little point in that because MIPS16 primarily targets very small systems -
a class of systems that Linux doesn't tend to run on well.

  Ralf