Mailing List Archive

What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info)
Hi,
I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
tasks.

So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.

Thanks!
Matt
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
Le 08 juillet à 18:22 Matt Turner a écrit
> Hi,
> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
> tasks.
>
> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
>
I've got two Gdium, i.e. MIPS 64 little-endian.

Cheers, Vx
--
Rejoignez les 5497 adhérents de l'April <http://www.april.org/adherer>
Parinux, logiciel libre à Paris : <http://www.parinux.org>
+33 (0) 148 295 997 <http://blog.thetys-retz.net/>
GPG Id: EBEC C39A DAAE F766 9785 EF23 E76F 467D 2E14 CE70
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
On 12:22 Thu 08 Jul , Matt Turner wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
> tasks.
>
> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.

Loongson 2E box
Loongson 2F box
Yeeloong Notebook

--
Zhang, Le
Gentoo/Loongson Developer
http://zhangle.is-a-geek.org
0260 C902 B8F8 6506 6586 2B90 BC51 C808 1E4E 2973
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
On 07/08/2010 06:22 PM, Matt Turner wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
> tasks.
>
> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
>
> Thanks!
> Matt
>

Hello,

i am running two systems with Gentoo:

- a R14000 SGI Octane (IP30)
- a RM7000 SGI O2 (IP32)

So, obviously, im kinda interested in SGI/Mips-Gentoo....

Thank you for all the work, btw.

Michael

--
Michael Schneider email: ms@vaxcluster.de
Germany http://www.vaxcluster.de

"Wenn die Liebe geht, die Hobbys bleiben!" (Rainald Grebe)
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
I have an Origin 300 with 6 R14k procs which I want to get gentoo running
on.

Michael

On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Michael Schneider <ms@vaxcluster.de> wrote:

> On 07/08/2010 06:22 PM, Matt Turner wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
>> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
>> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
>> tasks.
>>
>> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Matt
>>
>>
> Hello,
>
> i am running two systems with Gentoo:
>
> - a R14000 SGI Octane (IP30)
> - a RM7000 SGI O2 (IP32)
>
> So, obviously, im kinda interested in SGI/Mips-Gentoo....
>
> Thank you for all the work, btw.
>
> Michael
>
> --
> Michael Schneider email: ms@vaxcluster.de
> Germany http://www.vaxcluster.de
>
> "Wenn die Liebe geht, die Hobbys bleiben!" (Rainald Grebe)
>
>
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
Lemote Fuloong 2F

- Mads

On 08. juli 2010 18:22, Matt Turner wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
> tasks.
>
> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
>
> Thanks!
> Matt
>
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 4:39 PM, Michael Loeffler <mloeffler52@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have an Origin 300 with 6 R14k procs which I want to get gentoo running
> on.

(Very) unfortunately this is a bit out of my ability-level. The port
for the O300 (IP35) hasn't ever been completed. O300s would certainly
make excellent build systems if they were ever supported though.

Matt

> Michael
>
> On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Michael Schneider <ms@vaxcluster.de> wrote:
>>
>> On 07/08/2010 06:22 PM, Matt Turner wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
>>> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
>>> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
>>> tasks.
>>>
>>> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>> Matt
>>>
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> i am running two systems with Gentoo:
>>
>> - a R14000 SGI Octane (IP30)
>> - a RM7000 SGI O2 (IP32)
>>
>> So, obviously, im kinda interested in SGI/Mips-Gentoo....
>>
>> Thank you for all the work, btw.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> --
>> Michael Schneider                       email:   ms@vaxcluster.de
>> Germany                                  http://www.vaxcluster.de
>>
>>    "Wenn die Liebe geht, die Hobbys bleiben!" (Rainald Grebe)

(Very) unfortunately this is a bit out of my hands
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
SGI Octane - R10k single proc

On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 11:22 AM, Matt Turner <mattst88@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
> tasks.
>
> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
>
> Thanks!
> Matt
>
>


--
Ed Stafford
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
I have SGI Indy r5k single cpu 192M ram

2010/7/9 Ed Stafford <ed.stafford@gmail.com>

> SGI Octane - R10k single proc
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 11:22 AM, Matt Turner <mattst88@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
>> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
>> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
>> tasks.
>>
>> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Matt
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Ed Stafford
>



--
Best Regards,
Alexey 'Alexxy' Shvetsov
Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, Russia
Department of Molecular and Radiation Biophysics
Gentoo Team Ru
Gentoo Linux Dev
mailto:alexxyum@gmail.com
mailto:alexxy@gentoo.org
mailto:alexxy@omrb.pnpi.spb.ru
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
cobalt qube 2700 :$ (yeah yeah, slooooooow)


----- Original Message -----
> Hi,
> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
> tasks.
>
> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
>
> Thanks!
> Matt
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
On Thu, Jul 08, 2010 at 12:22:03PM -0400, Matt Turner wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
> tasks.
>
> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.

SGI Octane

Jens
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
Sgi Origin 2000 - R10k

:)

A.


On 07/08/10 18:22, Matt Turner wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
> tasks.
>
> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
>
> Thanks!
> Matt
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
> Hi,
> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
> tasks.
>
> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
>
> Thanks!
> Matt
>
I hate to admit it, but I had gentoo on a Challenge S with a 5K,
but I'd be happy to test on:
Indigo2 10K
O2 5K
and maybe an Indy 4.4K though that one is up for grabs.

Thanks,
Jason
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
Indy R4400SC/200 256MB RAM 24-bit graphics

On Thursday 08 July 2010 18:22:03 Matt Turner wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
> tasks.
>
> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
>
> Thanks!
> Matt



--
Regards,
Phil Botha
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
sgi O2
sgi Octane
cobalt RAQ
cobalt cube 2700

Greetings, Karin
-----

On Thu, 8 Jul 2010 12:22:03 -0400
Matt Turner <mattst88@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
> tasks.
>
> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
>
> Thanks!
> Matt
>
RE: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
Broadcom 1250a aka swarm
Broadcom 1480 aka bigsur

Thanks,
Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Turner [mailto:mattst88@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 9:22 AM
To: gentoo-mips@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: [gentoo-mips] What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info)

Hi,
I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
tasks.

So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.

Thanks!
Matt
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 07/09/10 09:56, Mark E Mason wrote:
> Broadcom 1250a aka swarm
> Broadcom 1480 aka bigsur
>
> Thanks,
> Mark
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt Turner [mailto:mattst88@gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 9:22 AM
> To: gentoo-mips@lists.gentoo.org
> Subject: [gentoo-mips] What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info)
>
> Hi,
> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
> tasks.
>
> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
>
> Thanks!
> Matt
>
>
>

I'm interested in embedded linux. I've been working with mips + uclibc
on Mikrotik boards. I run gentoo on them using this technique:

http://opensource.dyc.edu/mips-devel

I put some stages up here

http://opensource.dyc.edu/pub/misc/




-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.15 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEARECAAYFAkw3bwoACgkQl5yvQNBFVTVG0QCfZW6EPPFssuHwUzwWQcH0+mKE
X1sAn2qpI11MJZ13RiuIYJZSTb7iR/hs
=pdMO
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 12:22 PM, Matt Turner <mattst88@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
> stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
> run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
> tasks.
>
> So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
>
> Thanks!
> Matt

Thanks everybody for your responses.

A bit of background: MIPS has 3 ABIs: o32, n32, n64. o32 is the common
denominator, but is pretty inefficient. See [1]. As I suspected, all
the hardware people care about can use the n32 ABI, which is quite a
bit better.

To summarize the hardware collection
- 5 MIPS III/Loongson little-endian STMicroelectronics systems (Lemote, Gdium)
- 11 MIPS IV big-endian SGI systems
- 3 MIPS IV little-endian Cobalt systems
- 2 MIPS64 selectable-endian Broadcom systems

I've got a working n32 big-endian installation, and am preparing an
n32 little-endian installation at the moment. Once these are set up,
I'll start preparing some n32 stages.

I think first priority should be mips4 big-endian. From there, I don't
know whether I should build a mips4-le stage for cobalt systems, or a
mips3-le stage that would work for cobalt and Loongson. Do we know of
any plain MIPS III little-endian hardware?

Also, the MIPS port is going to be pretty unmaintainable until we can
kill off ~mips from ACCEPT_KEYWORDS. Currently, attempting to upgrade
almost anything causes something to break.

What do you guys think?

Thanks,
Matt

[1] http://www.linux-mips.org/wiki/WhatsWrongWithO32N32N64
Re: Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
On 23:13 Sat 10 Jul , Matt Turner wrote:
> To summarize the hardware collection
> - 5 MIPS III/Loongson little-endian STMicroelectronics systems (Lemote, Gdium)
> - 11 MIPS IV big-endian SGI systems
> - 3 MIPS IV little-endian Cobalt systems
> - 2 MIPS64 selectable-endian Broadcom systems
>
> What do you guys think?
Hi Matt,

Sorry for my interference, but I want to write some random thoughts
that come and go, for while now. It's good that you asked about what
hardware we have these days. Btw, I have two SGI O2, a r5k and a r10k.
The r10k is useless for linux (unless something hanpened inside the last
~2 years that I served in the army and was away). The r5k is in good
condition but *extremely slow*. Once upon a time, when the mips stable
keyword wasn't dropped yet, I wanted to become a mips arch tester, but
found it extremely difficult to work with my r5k, cause it was very very
slow as I said before. I tried to find cheap and better mips hardware
but with no luck. Those days, Lemote just started to exist, and I
couldn't find any reseller in Europe. The SGI stopped direct support of
o2/origin hardware(unless I'm wrong), which makes it difficult for
someone to find spare parts in case something happens to a SGI machine
(unless you 're in US).
From the side of the gentoo linux developer/arch tester/(at least from
my side), we really need new, good and fast hardware in order to work
productively. For a big project, such the Gentoo Mips Project, we need
more people with good and probably also different hardware. But! For
example, it's very difficult to do any gentoo development(ebuild
writing/testing, arch testing, compiling stuff, even to build stages with
catalyst), with embedded hardware or with old SGI hardware.
So, my question is, what hardware can a gentoo dev get these days, in
order to work productively? And another question, a project such as the
gentoo MIPS project, should see where the future goes and not to live
in the past, supporting old hardware crap, so where does the MIPS future
go anyway? Will it go to embedded devices only? Will it also go to
desktop systems/production servers?

(I really believe that the gentoo MIPS project died the last years cause
people didn't have the right hardware to work)

--
Panagiotis Christopoulos ( pchrist )
( Gentoo Lisp Project )
Re: Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Panagiotis Christopoulos
<pchrist@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 23:13 Sat 10 Jul     , Matt Turner wrote:
>> To summarize the hardware collection
>>  - 5 MIPS III/Loongson little-endian STMicroelectronics systems (Lemote, Gdium)
>>  - 11 MIPS IV big-endian SGI systems
>>  - 3 MIPS IV little-endian Cobalt systems
>>  - 2 MIPS64 selectable-endian Broadcom systems
>>
>> What do you guys think?
> Hi Matt,
>
>  Sorry for my interference, but I want to write some random thoughts
> that come and go, for while now. It's good that you asked about what
> hardware we have these days. Btw, I have two SGI O2, a r5k and a r10k.
> The r10k is useless for linux (unless something hanpened inside the last
> ~2 years that I served in the army and was away). The r5k is in good
> condition but *extremely slow*. Once upon a time, when the mips stable
> keyword wasn't dropped yet, I wanted to become a mips arch tester, but
> found it extremely difficult to work with my r5k, cause it was very very
> slow as I said before. I tried to find cheap and better mips hardware
> but with no luck. Those days, Lemote just started to exist, and I
> couldn't find any reseller in Europe. The SGI stopped direct support of
> o2/origin hardware(unless I'm wrong), which makes it difficult for
> someone to find spare parts in case something happens to a SGI machine
> (unless you 're in US).
>  From the side of the gentoo linux developer/arch tester/(at least from
> my side), we really need new, good and fast hardware in order to work
> productively. For a big project, such the Gentoo Mips Project, we need
> more people with good and probably also different hardware. But! For
> example, it's very difficult to do any gentoo development(ebuild
> writing/testing, arch testing, compiling stuff, even to build stages with
> catalyst), with embedded hardware or with old SGI hardware.
>  So, my question is, what hardware can a gentoo dev get these days, in
> order to work productively? And another question, a project such as the
> gentoo MIPS project, should see where the future goes and not to live
> in the past, supporting old hardware crap, so where does the MIPS future
> go anyway? Will it go to embedded devices only? Will it also go to
> desktop systems/production servers?
>
> (I really believe that the gentoo MIPS project died the last years cause
> people didn't have the right hardware to work)
>
> --
> Panagiotis Christopoulos ( pchrist )
>    ( Gentoo Lisp Project )

I absolutely agree that the lack of usably fast hardware is the biggest problem.

While installing software on the O2 is slow enough as it is, having
some kind of quality-assurance from Gentoo/MIPS in the form of
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="mips -~mips" would definitely make installing
software on the O2 less painful. Believe me, I've been there.
Compiling some package on a 300MHz R5000 takes hours, and then you
find out that it's clearly _never_ been tested when it breaks your
entire system so you've got to start the whole process over with a
different version.

I think the future of Linux/MIPS for regular users lies with
Lemote/GDium hardware. (We're probably going to not worry about things
like Octeon, for instance, since they're so expensive.) You'll notice
that many MIPS kernel developer work for companies using MIPS in
embedded environments though.

SGI systems are cheap and available though, so I think we should make
an effort to support them. The SGI Origin 300, with quad 600 MHz
R14ks, 4 MB L2 cache each, and 4 GB RAM is quite a fast system.
Unfortunately, the port has never been finished. O300s are quite cheap
(< 300 USD) and would make excellent Linux/MIPS systems, if only the
kernel port were completed.

I hope I've answered your questions. Please let me know.

Thanks,
Matt
RE: Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
Hello,

> I absolutely agree that the lack of usably fast hardware is the biggest problem.

While they're not the most common hardware out there, the Broadcom Sibyte MIPS boards make great build servers. Two or four cores in the 700-1000MHz range, with typically 1G of DRAM. I'm seeing what I can do about freeing up some additional boards for the Gentoo project. Details will probably have to wait until I get back from vacation (Hawaii).

Thanks,
Mark
Re: Re: What kind of MIPS hardware do we have? (Looking to restart Gentoo/MIPS, need info) [ In reply to ]
On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 11:13:04PM -0400, Matt Turner wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 12:22 PM, Matt Turner <mattst88@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I'm going to be working on Gentoo/MIPS. I'm planning to provide N32
> > stages, and I want to know what kind of MIPS hardware people have to
> > run Gentoo. With this info, I should be able to better prioritize the
> > tasks.
> >
> > So please reply with what kind of hardware you've got.
> >
> > Thanks!
> > Matt
>
> Thanks everybody for your responses.
>
> A bit of background: MIPS has 3 ABIs: o32, n32, n64. o32 is the common
> denominator, but is pretty inefficient. See [1]. As I suspected, all
> the hardware people care about can use the n32 ABI, which is quite a
> bit better.
>
> To summarize the hardware collection
> - 5 MIPS III/Loongson little-endian STMicroelectronics systems (Lemote, Gdium)
> - 11 MIPS IV big-endian SGI systems
> - 3 MIPS IV little-endian Cobalt systems
> - 2 MIPS64 selectable-endian Broadcom systems

I have some little-endian MIPS32 hardware which runs latest Gentoo.


> I've got a working n32 big-endian installation, and am preparing an
> n32 little-endian installation at the moment. Once these are set up,
> I'll start preparing some n32 stages.

> I think first priority should be mips4 big-endian. From there, I don't
> know whether I should build a mips4-le stage for cobalt systems, or a
> mips3-le stage that would work for cobalt and Loongson. Do we know of
> any plain MIPS III little-endian hardware?

I believe all the small MIPS32-based routers which run OpenWRT qualify.
Hoever I get the impression you want to focus on the "large" SGI
and 64bit Broadcom systems?


> Also, the MIPS port is going to be pretty unmaintainable until we can
> kill off ~mips from ACCEPT_KEYWORDS. Currently, attempting to upgrade
> almost anything causes something to break.

In my experience, lots of packages have problems with GCC-4.4 (removal
of the "h" asm constraint), and above all, the toolchain itself is
pretty problematic: Lots of linker errors with large libraries (e.g.
xulrunner, qt-webkit, gcj, ...)


Manuel