On Mon, Dec 04, 2000 at 05:30:39PM -0800, Chagas, Jason wrote:
> >from what I understand, the StrongARM core is equivalent (not to say is)
> >a SA1100. Do this means that I could expect to boot an ARM kernel
> >after some tweakings, or should I expect much more work.
>
> It may not be that simple. In most cases, the kernel should run in Big
> Endian mode on the IXP1200. Therefore, it may also require you build a big
> endian version of the GNU tools so you can build the kernel, drivers and
> other apps to run on it. Please contact David Meng ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) or
> Uday Naik ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) who have already done the port. Search on
> "IXP1200" (or "Big Endian") on this forum to find other contacts or call
> Intel.
As far as I know there is no real need to go big endian on te IXP1200,
but the advantage is that it might be easier for networking (and that's
what the IXP1200 is meant for).
I actually advised David to use the CPU in little endian mode, measure
the performance miss, and decide if it was really worth the effort to
do a complete ARM linux port to big endian. He ignored my advise
(because of business reasons I suppose) and managed to do a full port
(many kudos, David).
But I still wonder if you really should go big endian with the IXP1200
at all. I don't have hard figures about it, but I don't think the
network performance hit is that large at all: it didn't cripple the
little endian 8 Xeon Dell system using the TUX web server that won the
SpecWEB benchmark, ahead of the big endian big-iron machines from Sun,
SGI, and IBM. On the other hand, I don't have an IXP1200 system, so I'm
not too familiar with it.
Anyway, whatever the original poster wants to do, he should indeed
contact David or Uday because in that way he'll avoid doing double
work.
Erik
--
J.A.K. (Erik) Mouw, Information and Communication Theory Group, Department
of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Information Technology and Systems,
Delft University of Technology, PO BOX 5031, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-15-2783635 Fax: +31-15-2781843 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
WWW: http://www-ict.its.tudelft.nl/~erik/
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