Does anybody know of any active projects to port OpenBSD to 32-bit little endian MIPS architecture? I specifically want to put it on a Broadcom based router, i.e., ASUS WL series or Linksys WRT series. If not, here's my plea to start one:
As you probably know, custom router firmware is very popular right now and a good sized community of Linux users has sprung up to supply and support the increasing demand. OpenWRT, DD-WRT, NSLU2-Linux and Oleg's ASUS firmware are just a few examples, but Google turns up very little for embedded OpenBSD. I understand there is Flashdist for x86 based devices, and the SGI port for full featured 64-bit big-endien MIPS systems, but that doesn't satisfy about 95% of the users out there. NetBSD maintains an evaluation board port aimed at this segment, but it doesn't have the same reputation for security. A search of the of the official website turns up a mention an arcane mipsel port circa version 2.0 and references a support volunteer's port, but again, not too useful since neither is available. From what little I have found, at first mention of the idea to port OpenBSD to Broadcom-based devices people shy away with the belief that A., there isn't enough memory to work with, B., the closed source Broadcom wireless drivers are incompatible with the OpenBSD philosophy, or C., the diverse nature of the market would make development too complex or unreliable. To those arguments I respond in turn, it hasn't stopped Linux, not all of them use Broadcom wireless interfaces, and a good starting point is very popular and not-so-diverse Broadcom-based routers. Moreover, this is a huge opportunity for OpenBSD to reach a wider audience. I think this is an excellent chance for OpenBSD to show it's strengths to a more generalized crowd. The act of porting it, too, might further the overall goals of OpenBSD by ensuring the overall portability and correctness of the operating system code through verification on a larger range of architectures. I'm nowhere near experienced enough to port OpenBSD myself, but I'd like a practical reason to use the operating system. Like most home computer users out there I'm mostly a Windows user, so installing a new system and trying to do everything I'd normally do (browse the web, use OpenOffice.org, download video, etc.) doesn't seem like a productive use of my time, and from experience with Linux, I would only scratch the surface. Running it as a router/firewall/VPN end-point/Samba server/CA server/RADIUS server/file server/everything-and-anything-you-can-think-of server, on the other hand, would require me to learn a more about the nuts and bolts of the system AND make use of it's famous security. It seems like the perfect OS for the job, but I see no effort to port it. Lucas Yamanishi
