Re: [9fans] I can not remember if I sent this or not: MIPS-64 (sort of) notebook

2009-03-20 Thread ron minnich
On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 4:43 PM, erik quanstrom quans...@quanstro.net wrote:
 so, here's a silghtly controversial (maybe) suggestion. Maybe my
 memory is wrong, but i believe the vx32 kernel is gcc-compiled. There
 is gcc for this CPU. It might be easier to start from the vx32 kernel
 and gcc to target this machine, rather than do a 64-bit MIPS port of
 the plan 9 C compiler. Or not: a few of the folks on this list could
 probably retarget in very short order (I'm not one of the,however).

 vx32 relies on x86 segment registers.

Let me say it differently. The way in which the plan 9 kernel code was
changed to be gcc-compilable as part of the vx32 kernel might provide
some hints as to how to change a whole plan 9 kernel. The point being,
it is not impossible to get a gcc-compilable plan 9 kernel. We used to
talk about this at LANL all the time: we called it the evil project.
(This idea predates vx32 but it was not my idea; I will let the evil
person behind the evil project identify himself). This change would
remove have to porttestvalidatefixvalidate... the C compiler
first as a barrier to entry on new CPUs.

see src/vx32 in the vx32 tree.

ron



Re: [9fans] I can not remember if I sent this or not: MIPS-64 (sort of) notebook

2009-03-20 Thread ron minnich
On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 8:15 AM, erik quanstrom quans...@quanstro.net wrote:

 i'm really missing something.  what executables does this
 kernel run?  how are they generated?

one of us is. I'll let it drop here because it might be me.

ron



Re: [9fans] I can not remember if I sent this or not: MIPS-64 (sort of) notebook

2009-03-20 Thread Iruata Souza
On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 12:15 PM, erik quanstrom quans...@quanstro.net wrote:
 wouldn't it just be easier to use 32-bit compatability mode
 (http://www.mips.com/products/processors/architectures/mips64/)
 for bootstrapping using vc?

that's how i started playing.

iru



Re: [9fans] I can not remember if I sent this or not: MIPS-64 (sort of) notebook

2009-03-20 Thread ron minnich
Is a mips-64 port a reasonable GSOC project? The person doing it could
not come in cold, but there is a starting point it seems.

In spite of my earlier suggestion, I have to agree with Russ. Gcc and
its utils are a daily headache for me, I'd rather just get a mips-64
compiler port first.

ron



Re: [9fans] I can not remember if I sent this or not: MIPS-64 (sort of) notebook

2009-03-20 Thread ron minnich
On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 4:52 PM, James Tomaschke ja...@orcasystems.com wrote:
 I would suggest the compiler as well, students are probably more familiar
 with compiler concepts and it will probably be easier to mentor.  In the
 future, the porting work can be distributed over the community anyways.

Sorry, I was not clear: I only meant a mips-64 compiler port.

rno



Re: [9fans] I can not remember if I sent this or not: MIPS-64 (sort of) notebook

2009-03-20 Thread James Tomaschke
I would suggest the compiler as well, students are probably more 
familiar with compiler concepts and it will probably be easier to 
mentor.  In the future, the porting work can be distributed over the 
community anyways.


ron minnich wrote:

Is a mips-64 port a reasonable GSOC project? The person doing it could
not come in cold, but there is a starting point it seems.

In spite of my earlier suggestion, I have to agree with Russ. Gcc and
its utils are a daily headache for me, I'd rather just get a mips-64
compiler port first.

ron







Re: [9fans] I can not remember if I sent this or not: MIPS-64 (sort of) notebook

2009-03-20 Thread Devon H. O'Dell
2009/3/20 ron minnich rminn...@gmail.com:
 On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 4:52 PM, James Tomaschke ja...@orcasystems.com 
 wrote:
 I would suggest the compiler as well, students are probably more familiar
 with compiler concepts and it will probably be easier to mentor.  In the
 future, the porting work can be distributed over the community anyways.

 Sorry, I was not clear: I only meant a mips-64 compiler port.

I think so. Who wants to mentor? I'd be up for getting one of these
puppies if anybody wants to do it (though they are rather expensive
considering no US distributor... harrumph) and mentoring to some
degree, but I'm more likely to want to help out with (and probably a
better contact for) 9vx work than that.

--dho



Re: [9fans] I can not remember if I sent this or not: MIPS-64 (sort of) notebook

2009-03-19 Thread Anthony Sorace
i was looking at this a week or two ago, trying to find an ARM or MIPS
laptop to play with. my first question was whether the missing parts
of the MIPS instruction set are things that our compilers currently
generate; SoC (oh, and my day job) ramped up before i could find the
list of missing instructions. any idea?

getting quotes or delivery in the US seemed tricky, too.



Re: [9fans] I can not remember if I sent this or not: MIPS-64 (sort of) notebook

2009-03-19 Thread ron minnich
On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 4:14 PM, Anthony Sorace ano...@gmail.com wrote:
 i was looking at this a week or two ago, trying to find an ARM or MIPS
 laptop to play with. my first question was whether the missing parts
 of the MIPS instruction set are things that our compilers currently
 generate; SoC (oh, and my day job) ramped up before i could find the
 list of missing instructions. any idea?

 getting quotes or delivery in the US seemed tricky, too.

so, here's a silghtly controversial (maybe) suggestion. Maybe my
memory is wrong, but i believe the vx32 kernel is gcc-compiled. There
is gcc for this CPU. It might be easier to start from the vx32 kernel
and gcc to target this machine, rather than do a 64-bit MIPS port of
the plan 9 C compiler. Or not: a few of the folks on this list could
probably retarget in very short order (I'm not one of the,however).

ron



Re: [9fans] I can not remember if I sent this or not: MIPS-64 (sort of) notebook

2009-03-19 Thread Iruata Souza
tim weiss started work on kencc mips64 port and I started (w/o the
compiler) playing with Plan 9 on mips64 based on the old carrera port.

the stupid initial code is at http://src.oitobits.net/9sgi

On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 8:24 PM, ron minnich rminn...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 4:14 PM, Anthony Sorace ano...@gmail.com wrote:
 i was looking at this a week or two ago, trying to find an ARM or MIPS
 laptop to play with. my first question was whether the missing parts
 of the MIPS instruction set are things that our compilers currently
 generate; SoC (oh, and my day job) ramped up before i could find the
 list of missing instructions. any idea?

 getting quotes or delivery in the US seemed tricky, too.

 so, here's a silghtly controversial (maybe) suggestion. Maybe my
 memory is wrong, but i believe the vx32 kernel is gcc-compiled. There
 is gcc for this CPU. It might be easier to start from the vx32 kernel
 and gcc to target this machine, rather than do a 64-bit MIPS port of
 the plan 9 C compiler. Or not: a few of the folks on this list could
 probably retarget in very short order (I'm not one of the,however).

 ron





-- 
iru