Mailing List Archive

Please test SGI mips stages
Hi,
I've completed a round of stages suitable for SGI mips systems.

They're available here: http://dev.gentoo.org/~mattst88/mips-stages/

In order to use them, you really need to have an existing Linux
installation (or BSD, perhaps?) since we don't have any working
netboot or CD images. (Please respond if lack of bootable media is
preventing you from testing. I really need to know what the demand
is.)

The stages are all multilib, meaning they support o32, n32 (default),
and n64 ABIs. n32 is the default ABI and it gives a rather nice
speed-up over the o32 ABI previously used. With multilib, glibc must
be compiled three times, so if you have no need for the o32 and n64
ABIs, you may switch profiles and on your next glibc build, they'll be
removed. Once removed, it's not trivial to get them back. If you wish
to switch the default ABI of your system, you should switch to another
multilib profile and recompile your system.

The mips3 stage is compiled with -mfix-4000 -mfix-4400 so it should be
suitable for any MIPS III system using R4xxx CPUs such as the Indigo,
Indy, and Indigo2.

The mips4 stage is suitable for systems with R5xxx CPUs such as the Indy and O2.

The mips4-r10k stage (will be uploaded in a few hours) is suitable for
supported R10k systems, such as the Indigo2 and Origin 2xx (and
perhaps R10k O2s?).

Please test and let me know of your results. If you are unable to test
due to lack of boot media, please tell me what kind of systems you'd
like boot media to be made for.

Thanks!
Matt

PS: there are a rapidly diminishing number of bugs that prevent MIPS
stages from being built without modifying the portage tree. They are
listed here:
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=354877
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=355283
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=358149
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=373361 (for r10k stages)

If you'd like to help offset the cost of electricity used to create
these and future stages, please send me a private email. :)
Re: Please test SGI mips stages [ In reply to ]
Hi Matt,

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 7:03 AM, Matt Turner <mattst88@gentoo.org> wrote:
> If you'd like to help offset the cost of electricity used to create
> these and future stages, please send me a private email. :)

First of all, thanks for fixing Gentoo on MIPS

What kind of machines are you looking for? I suspect you're aiming for
the bigger 64bit machines (SiByte, SGI) ?
I'd like to help and I routinely (re)build Gentoo on little-endian MIPS32
machines (o32 ABI); but I don't have any 64bit machines.

Manuel
Re: Please test SGI mips stages [ In reply to ]
On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 3:32 AM, Manuel Lauss
<manuel.lauss@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi Matt,
>
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 7:03 AM, Matt Turner <mattst88@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> If you'd like to help offset the cost of electricity used to create
>> these and future stages, please send me a private email. :)
>
> First of all, thanks for fixing Gentoo on MIPS
>
> What kind of machines are you looking for?  I suspect you're aiming for
> the bigger 64bit machines (SiByte, SGI) ?
> I'd like to help and I routinely (re)build Gentoo on little-endian MIPS32
> machines (o32 ABI); but I don't have any 64bit machines.

Great. Thanks :)

I plan to build mips32 stages, but I don't really know much about this
type of hardware. As you guessed, I'm more interested in 64-bit
systems.

Are there big-endian mips32 systems worth supporting? My little-endian
userland seems to be dead and I've been building these big endian
stages, so I haven't had time to revive it yet.

If you would, please join the #gentoo-mips IRC channel. :)

Matt
Re: Please test SGI mips stages [ In reply to ]
On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 6:00 PM, Matt Turner <mattst88@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 3:32 AM, Manuel Lauss
> <manuel.lauss@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Matt,
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 7:03 AM, Matt Turner <mattst88@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>> If you'd like to help offset the cost of electricity used to create
>>> these and future stages, please send me a private email. :)
>>
>> First of all, thanks for fixing Gentoo on MIPS
>>
>> What kind of machines are you looking for?  I suspect you're aiming for
>> the bigger 64bit machines (SiByte, SGI) ?
>> I'd like to help and I routinely (re)build Gentoo on little-endian MIPS32
>> machines (o32 ABI); but I don't have any 64bit machines.
>
> Great. Thanks :)
>
> I plan to build mips32 stages, but I don't really know much about this
> type of hardware. As you guessed, I'm more interested in 64-bit
> systems.
>
> Are there big-endian mips32 systems worth supporting? My little-endian
> userland seems to be dead and I've been building these big endian
> stages, so I haven't had time to revive it yet.

I think almost every little broadcom/atheros-based router supported
by OpenWRT is a potential candidate; they certainly outnumber the
available big SGI boxes :) I don't know which endianness though,
but being networking machines I suppose them being big-endian
makes sense.

My test hardware is bi-endian, but I never ran it big-endian since I've
no kernel for them. Let me just try and figure out what's necessary..


> If you would, please join the #gentoo-mips IRC channel. :)

Done.

Thanks,
Manuel Lauss