From owner-freebsd-alpha Mon May 12 18:20:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA18332 for alpha-outgoing; Mon, 12 May 1997 18:20:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA18320 for ; Mon, 12 May 1997 18:20:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 1.60 #1) id 0wR6G4-0004fs-00; Mon, 12 May 1997 19:20:04 -0600 To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Subject: Pointer to Linux/Alpha Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 19:20:04 -0600 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Greetings, I'm looking for the one true FTP site for Linux/Alpha sources. Any pointers? Warner From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 13:25:10 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA11429 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 13:25:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA11420 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 13:24:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 1.60 #1) id 0wRO7g-0005yV-00; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:24:36 -0600 To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 13 May 1997 13:21:32 PDT." References: Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 14:24:36 -0600 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In message Curt Sampson writes: : Currently the GNU tools targeted to the Alpha support ELF quite : well. Presumably the ECOFF support still works as well, but ECOFF : doesn't support shared libraries. NetBSD-current is using ELF on : the Alpha now. Cool! I didn't know for sure. Now I do. I'd say there is no reason to use ECOFF at all. Warner From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 13:37:52 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA11972 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 13:37:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from austin.polstra.com (austin.polstra.com [206.213.73.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA11966 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 13:37:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from austin.polstra.com (jdp@localhost) by austin.polstra.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA09280; Tue, 13 May 1997 13:37:39 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199705132037.NAA09280@austin.polstra.com> To: Warner Losh cc: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 13 May 1997 14:24:36 MDT." References: Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 13:37:39 -0700 From: John Polstra Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > : ... NetBSD-current is using ELF on > : the Alpha now. FWIW, they're using a hacked-up version of my ElfKit dynamic linker. John -- John Polstra jdp@polstra.com John D. Polstra & Co., Inc. Seattle, Washington USA "Self-knowledge is always bad news." -- John Barth From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 13:48:06 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA12875 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 13:48:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA12829 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 13:48:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 1.60 #1) id 0wROU9-00060c-00; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:47:50 -0600 To: John Polstra Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. Cc: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 13 May 1997 13:37:39 PDT." <199705132037.NAA09280@austin.polstra.com> References: <199705132037.NAA09280@austin.polstra.com> Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 14:47:49 -0600 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In message <199705132037.NAA09280@austin.polstra.com> John Polstra writes: : > : ... NetBSD-current is using ELF on : > : the Alpha now. : : FWIW, they're using a hacked-up version of my ElfKit dynamic linker. Sounds like a good reason to go ELF then. :-) Warner From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 13:53:06 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA13259 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 13:53:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA13252 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 13:53:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 1.60 #1) id 0wROZ5-000619-00; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:52:55 -0600 Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 13 May 1997 14:24:36 MDT." References: Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 14:52:55 -0600 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In message Warner Losh writes: : Cool! I didn't know for sure. Now I do. I'd say there is no reason : to use ECOFF at all. Except that the boot program needs to read an ECOFF image off the disk in the ARC console (based on comments of others plus my experience with ARC BIOS mips machines). So some way of generating these ECOFF files must exist. Fortunately, the elf2ecoff that was written for and used by the NetBSD/pmax project, so it shouldn't be too hard to convert (assuming that the binutils obj-copy doesn't do the job already). We'll also need a working FAT file system since the ARC console only groks FAT file systems (or iso9660). Warner From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 14:10:54 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA14807 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:10:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA14802 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:10:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id OAA10322; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:11:09 -0700 (PDT) To: Warner Losh cc: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 13 May 1997 14:52:55 MDT." Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 14:11:08 -0700 Message-ID: <10319.863557868@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Except that the boot program needs to read an ECOFF image off the disk > in the ARC console (based on comments of others plus my experience > with ARC BIOS mips machines). So some way of generating these ECOFF > files must exist. Fortunately, the elf2ecoff that was written for and I don't think that's necessary - MILO isn't an ECOFF binary, for example, yet the loader seems to read it in and jump to it just fine (from the ARC console). Jordan From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 14:13:41 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA15075 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:13:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA15052 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:13:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 1.60 #1) id 0wROsN-000646-00; Tue, 13 May 1997 15:12:51 -0600 To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. Cc: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 13 May 1997 14:11:08 PDT." <10319.863557868@time.cdrom.com> References: <10319.863557868@time.cdrom.com> Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 15:12:51 -0600 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In message <10319.863557868@time.cdrom.com> "Jordan K. Hubbard" writes: : > Except that the boot program needs to read an ECOFF image off the disk : > in the ARC console (based on comments of others plus my experience : > with ARC BIOS mips machines). So some way of generating these ECOFF : > files must exist. Fortunately, the elf2ecoff that was written for and : : I don't think that's necessary - MILO isn't an ECOFF binary, for : example, yet the loader seems to read it in and jump to it just fine : (from the ARC console). Where can I get the Linux/Alpha MILO? Warner From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 14:19:08 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA15430 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:19:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA15423 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:19:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id OAA10402; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:19:21 -0700 (PDT) To: Warner Losh cc: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 13 May 1997 15:12:51 MDT." Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 14:19:21 -0700 Message-ID: <10399.863558361@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > : I don't think that's necessary - MILO isn't an ECOFF binary, for > : example, yet the loader seems to read it in and jump to it just fine > : (from the ARC console). > > Where can I get the Linux/Alpha MILO? >From any Linux site? Try ftp.redhat.com - that's where I got mine. :) Jordan From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 14:31:53 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA16223 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:31:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA16214 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:31:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 1.60 #1) id 0wRPAc-00065W-00; Tue, 13 May 1997 15:31:42 -0600 To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. Cc: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 13 May 1997 14:19:21 PDT." <10399.863558361@time.cdrom.com> References: <10399.863558361@time.cdrom.com> Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 15:31:42 -0600 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In message <10399.863558361@time.cdrom.com> "Jordan K. Hubbard" writes: : > : I don't think that's necessary - MILO isn't an ECOFF binary, for : > : example, yet the loader seems to read it in and jump to it just fine : > : (from the ARC console). : > : > Where can I get the Linux/Alpha MILO? : : >From any Linux site? Try ftp.redhat.com - that's where I got mine. :) : : Jordan I'm grabbing mine from gatekeeper.dec.com right now. It looks like there is a ECOFF program called loadlin.exe for Windows NT. The SRM console appears to have the traditional bootblock and that's all you get approach. And there are references to something new called AlphaBIOS which looks like the ARC BIOSes on the MIPS machines looked: more PC like. Will definitely have to look at this stuff, some of which has no source assocaited with it :-(. Warner From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 14:32:38 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA16284 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:32:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA16279 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:32:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id OAA10489; Tue, 13 May 1997 14:32:51 -0700 (PDT) To: Warner Losh cc: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 13 May 1997 15:31:42 MDT." Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 14:32:51 -0700 Message-ID: <10485.863559171@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > I'm grabbing mine from gatekeeper.dec.com right now. It looks like > there is a ECOFF program called loadlin.exe for Windows NT. The SRM Erm. That sure looks like a DOS executable to me. ;-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 15:01:53 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA19201 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 15:01:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA19189 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 15:01:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 1.60 #1) id 0wRPdg-00068C-00; Tue, 13 May 1997 16:01:44 -0600 To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. Cc: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 13 May 1997 14:32:51 PDT." <10485.863559171@time.cdrom.com> References: <10485.863559171@time.cdrom.com> Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 16:01:44 -0600 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In message <10485.863559171@time.cdrom.com> "Jordan K. Hubbard" writes: : > I'm grabbing mine from gatekeeper.dec.com right now. It looks like : > there is a ECOFF program called loadlin.exe for Windows NT. The SRM : : Erm. That sure looks like a DOS executable to me. ;-) Can't be a dos program on an Alpha :-) File doesn't say that it is a DOS exe. Looking at the header shows that it isn't a DOS exe. However, file doesn't know what it is. Since the first 5 bytes aren't ELF64 or ELF32, I concluded it must be an ECOFF binary since all other forms that I'm aware of start with two ASCII letters. Warner From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 16:20:26 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA23486 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 16:20:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from duke.cs.duke.edu (duke.cs.duke.edu [152.3.140.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA23481 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 16:20:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.cs.duke.edu (hurricane.cs.duke.edu [152.3.145.1]) by duke.cs.duke.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA20953; Tue, 13 May 1997 19:20:21 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from gallatin@localhost) by hurricane.cs.duke.edu (8.8.4/8.7.3) id TAA30881; Tue, 13 May 1997 19:20:12 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 19:20:12 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705132320.TAA30881@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> From: Andrew Gallatin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Warner Losh CC: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: References: <10485.863559171@time.cdrom.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.22 under 19.15 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Warner Losh writes: > In message <10485.863559171@time.cdrom.com> "Jordan K. Hubbard" writes: > : > I'm grabbing mine from gatekeeper.dec.com right now. It looks like > : > there is a ECOFF program called loadlin.exe for Windows NT. The SRM > : > > : Erm. That sure looks like a DOS executable to me. ;-) > > Can't be a dos program on an Alpha :-) File doesn't say that it is a > DOS exe. Looking at the header shows that it isn't a DOS exe. > However, file doesn't know what it is. Since the first 5 bytes aren't > ELF64 or ELF32, I concluded it must be an ECOFF binary since all other > forms that I'm aware of start with two ASCII letters. > > Warner If you look at the milo distribution, there is a file (tools/arc/arc.s) whose comments give a description of the format of the header of an ARC image. They describe an ARC image as a 'sort of a.out' image. If you look at linload.exe using od, it seems to match that format.. Drew ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Andrew Gallatin http://www.cs.duke.edu/~gallatin Duke University Email: gallatin@cs.duke.edu Department of Computer Science Phone: (919) 660-6590 From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 16:23:37 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA23631 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 16:23:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from lestat.nas.nasa.gov (lestat.nas.nasa.gov [129.99.50.29]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA23610; Tue, 13 May 1997 16:23:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by lestat.nas.nasa.gov (8.7.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA25620; Tue, 13 May 1997 16:11:10 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199705132311.QAA25620@lestat.nas.nasa.gov> X-Authentication-Warning: lestat.nas.nasa.gov: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Cc: Warner Losh , Ben Black , Brandon Gillespie , hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. Reply-To: Jason Thorpe From: Jason Thorpe Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 16:11:04 -0700 Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 13 May 1997 13:21:32 -0700 (PDT) Curt Sampson wrote: > Currently the GNU tools targeted to the Alpha support ELF quite > well. Presumably the ECOFF support still works as well, but ECOFF > doesn't support shared libraries. NetBSD-current is using ELF on > the Alpha now. ...ECOFF can support shared libraries (Digital UNIX (formerly DEC OSF/1)) uses ECOFF. Elf is just much saner, in general. Jason R. Thorpe thorpej@nas.nasa.gov NASA Ames Research Center Home: 408.866.1912 NAS: M/S 258-6 Work: 415.604.0935 Moffett Field, CA 94035 Pager: 415.428.6939 From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 16:33:31 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA24374 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 16:33:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA24356 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 16:33:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 1.60 #1) id 0wRR4L-0006Fg-00; Tue, 13 May 1997 17:33:21 -0600 To: Andrew Gallatin Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. Cc: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 13 May 1997 19:20:12 EDT." <199705132320.TAA30881@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> References: <199705132320.TAA30881@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> <10485.863559171@time.cdrom.com> Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 17:33:20 -0600 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In message <199705132320.TAA30881@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> Andrew Gallatin writes: : If you look at the milo distribution, there is a file : (tools/arc/arc.s) whose comments give a description of the format : of the header of an ARC image. They describe an ARC image as a 'sort : of a.out' image. : : If you look at linload.exe using od, it seems to match that format.. That's what I was seeing. thanks for the pointer. This looks like just what I need. Warner From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 18:48:37 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA02925 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 18:48:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA02914 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 18:48:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id SAA11375 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 18:48:51 -0700 (PDT) Prev-Resent: Tue, 13 May 1997 18:48:50 -0700 Prev-Resent: "freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org " Received: from mail13.digital.com (mail13.digital.com [192.208.46.30]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id MAA04890 for ; Mon, 12 May 1997 12:01:30 -0700 (PDT) From: clemc@polaris.mro.dec.com Received: from polaris.mro.dec.com by mail13.digital.com (8.7.5/UNX 1.5/1.0/WV) id OAA16505; Mon, 12 May 1997 14:42:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost by polaris.mro.dec.com (5.65v3.2/1.1.10.5/14Aug96-1201PM) id AA27795; Mon, 12 May 1997 14:40:44 -0400 Message-Id: <9705121840.AA27795@polaris.mro.dec.com> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Cc: rose@pa.dec.com, dhunter@pa.dec.com Subject: SRM vs ARC vs ``Alpha BIOS'' Really-From: Clement T. Cole Organization: Technical Director, SPE; Digital Equipment Corp; 508-467-3614 X-Face: 3}V1_dLw'G]SyK"z1**jB);1uPOBSQWhKMARA<6*R$* Reply-To: clemc@mro.dec.com Date: Mon, 12 May 97 14:40:43 -0400 X-Mts: smtp Resent-To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Resent-Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 18:48:50 -0700 Resent-Message-ID: <11371.863574530@time.cdrom.com> Resent-From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Jordan, It turns out that Alpha's have some slick Intel BIOS emulation called the ``Alpa BIOS.'' This is used by both ARC and SRM to set up add-in cards. I had a long chat with Dave Hunter today, and Dave is going to talk to him friends in NT-Land that know the most about this. The more he and I talked, the more it sounds like this the technology that you need to be looking at for raw boot. My guess is that you will be able to use it get to the traditional FreeBSD bootstrap code, similar to the way you do now with the modified CMU Mach/Oliveti-Intel boot loader [which calls in the ROM-BIOS]. You are still likely to need help with the PAL code. You will need to support some of it, the question is how much and what. Clem From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 22:03:30 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA18461 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 22:03:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from spinner.DIALix.COM (spinner.dialix.com [192.203.228.67]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA18439 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 22:03:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from spinner.DIALix.COM (localhost.dialix.com.au [127.0.0.1]) by spinner.DIALix.COM with ESMTP id NAA07188; Wed, 14 May 1997 13:01:35 +0800 (WST) Message-Id: <199705140501.NAA07188@spinner.DIALix.COM> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0gamma 1/27/96 To: John Polstra cc: Warner Losh , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 13 May 1997 13:37:39 MST." <199705132037.NAA09280@austin.polstra.com> Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 13:01:34 +0800 From: Peter Wemm Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk John Polstra wrote: > > : ... NetBSD-current is using ELF on > > : the Alpha now. > > FWIW, they're using a hacked-up version of my ElfKit dynamic linker. I saw this.. Have you had a look at what they've done? Is it enough to call "complete"? > John Cheers, -Peter From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue May 13 22:06:02 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA18654 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 May 1997 22:06:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from austin.polstra.com (austin.polstra.com [206.213.73.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA18649 for ; Tue, 13 May 1997 22:06:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from austin.polstra.com (jdp@localhost) by austin.polstra.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA13335; Tue, 13 May 1997 22:05:34 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199705140505.WAA13335@austin.polstra.com> To: Peter Wemm cc: Warner Losh , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 14 May 1997 13:01:34 +0800." <199705140501.NAA07188@spinner.DIALix.COM> References: <199705140501.NAA07188@spinner.DIALix.COM> Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 22:05:34 -0700 From: John Polstra Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > FWIW, they're using a hacked-up version of my ElfKit dynamic linker. > > I saw this.. Have you had a look at what they've done? Is it enough to > call "complete"? I took a quick glance at it and got grossed out by all the ifdefs. I didn't examine it in depth. John From owner-freebsd-alpha Wed May 14 01:32:58 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA22140 for alpha-outgoing; Wed, 14 May 1997 01:32:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gnostic.cynic.net (gnostic.cynic.net [198.73.220.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA22134 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 01:32:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost ([[UNIX: localhost]]) by gnostic.cynic.net (8.8.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA09349; Wed, 14 May 1997 01:31:47 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: gnostic.cynic.net: cjs owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 01:31:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Curt Sampson X-Sender: cjs@gnostic.cynic.net To: Peter Wemm cc: John Polstra , Warner Losh , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: <199705140501.NAA07188@spinner.DIALix.COM> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 14 May 1997, Peter Wemm wrote: > John Polstra wrote: > > > : ... NetBSD-current is using ELF on > > > : the Alpha now. > > > > FWIW, they're using a hacked-up version of my ElfKit dynamic linker. > > I saw this.. Have you had a look at what they've done? Is it enough to > call "complete"? What do you mean by `complete'? Both the alpha and the pmax ports are completely ELF-based, and I use the former as my main server at home. PowerPC also uses ELF, and there's been a bit of work on an m68k version, I understand. What does FreeBSD need here that NetBSD doesn't? cjs Curt Sampson cjs@portal.ca Info at http://www.portal.ca/ Internet Portal Services, Inc. `And malt does more than Milton can Vancouver, BC (604) 257-9400 To justify God's ways to man.' From owner-freebsd-alpha Wed May 14 01:44:07 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA24150 for alpha-outgoing; Wed, 14 May 1997 01:44:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gnostic.cynic.net (gnostic.cynic.net [198.73.220.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA24145 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 01:44:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost ([[UNIX: localhost]]) by gnostic.cynic.net (8.8.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA09378; Wed, 14 May 1997 01:43:47 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: gnostic.cynic.net: cjs owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 01:43:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Curt Sampson X-Sender: cjs@gnostic.cynic.net To: Warner Losh cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 13 May 1997, Warner Losh wrote: > Will definitely have to look at this stuff, some of which has no > source assocaited with it :-(. I seem to recall that you had to sign an NDA to get some of the ARC-related information, and thus the Linux developers can't actually release source code for some of their boot-related stuff. I may be wrong, though. cjs Curt Sampson cjs@portal.ca Info at http://www.portal.ca/ Internet Portal Services, Inc. `And malt does more than Milton can Vancouver, BC (604) 257-9400 To justify God's ways to man.' From owner-freebsd-alpha Wed May 14 02:17:46 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA29310 for alpha-outgoing; Wed, 14 May 1997 02:17:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from spinner.DIALix.COM (spinner.dialix.com [192.203.228.67]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA29305 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 02:17:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from spinner.DIALix.COM (localhost.dialix.com.au [127.0.0.1]) by spinner.DIALix.COM with ESMTP id RAA09023; Wed, 14 May 1997 17:16:33 +0800 (WST) Message-Id: <199705140916.RAA09023@spinner.DIALix.COM> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0gamma 1/27/96 To: Curt Sampson cc: John Polstra , Warner Losh , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 14 May 1997 01:31:46 MST." Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 17:16:32 +0800 From: Peter Wemm Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Curt Sampson wrote: > On Wed, 14 May 1997, Peter Wemm wrote: > > > John Polstra wrote: > > > > : ... NetBSD-current is using ELF on > > > > : the Alpha now. > > > > > > FWIW, they're using a hacked-up version of my ElfKit dynamic linker. > > > > I saw this.. Have you had a look at what they've done? Is it enough to > > call "complete"? > > What do you mean by `complete'? Both the alpha and the pmax ports > are completely ELF-based, and I use the former as my main server > at home. PowerPC also uses ELF, and there's been a bit of work on > an m68k version, I understand. > > What does FreeBSD need here that NetBSD doesn't? Relax, it was just a question... I just wanted to know if it was complete (ie: fully functional with no missing parts, eg, 'ar' support). Does it use elf-style shared libray versioning (ie: symlinks and internal names) or does it use a runtime ld.so.cache major.minor[.micro] a.out style system? The rtld that John released with ElfKit only supported the elf-style DT_SONAME shared library system. I realise this is a touchy subject with the person from the "other BSD" camp doing what was done with Chris's elf work at cygnus. Cheers, -Peter From owner-freebsd-alpha Wed May 14 03:15:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA08587 for alpha-outgoing; Wed, 14 May 1997 03:15:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gnostic.cynic.net (gnostic.cynic.net [198.73.220.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA08578 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 03:15:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost ([[UNIX: localhost]]) by gnostic.cynic.net (8.8.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA11307; Wed, 14 May 1997 03:14:24 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: gnostic.cynic.net: cjs owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 03:14:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Curt Sampson X-Sender: cjs@gnostic.cynic.net To: Peter Wemm cc: John Polstra , Warner Losh , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: <199705140916.RAA09023@spinner.DIALix.COM> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Relax, it was just a question... Oh, don't take that the wrong way. I'm not upset by the question; it was just so vague I honestly didn't understand what you were trying to get at. > I just wanted to know if it was complete > (ie: fully functional with no missing parts, eg, 'ar' support). Ar support works, yes; we use it for static libraries. As I said, we have systems that run on ELF and nothing else, which to me means that pretty much all support is there. If you have any particular queries, I'm happy to answer them. > Does it > use elf-style shared libray versioning (ie: symlinks and internal names) > or does it use a runtime ld.so.cache major.minor[.micro] a.out style > system? It uses the elf-style system. However, there was some discussion about how to deal with the semantics of using different versions of the library, since the a.out system has different semantics from the regular ELF system in terms of what it does if the desired version is not available. Getting ELF to emulate this was looking like a real PITA. I don't remember off-hand all the details of the problem or the eventual result, however. cjs Curt Sampson cjs@portal.ca Info at http://www.portal.ca/ Internet Portal Services, Inc. `And malt does more than Milton can Vancouver, BC (604) 257-9400 To justify God's ways to man.' From owner-freebsd-alpha Wed May 14 03:53:28 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA10719 for alpha-outgoing; Wed, 14 May 1997 03:53:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from spinner.DIALix.COM (spinner.dialix.com [192.203.228.67]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA10712 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 03:53:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from spinner.DIALix.COM (localhost.dialix.com.au [127.0.0.1]) by spinner.DIALix.COM with ESMTP id SAA09926; Wed, 14 May 1997 18:51:16 +0800 (WST) Message-Id: <199705141051.SAA09926@spinner.DIALix.COM> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0gamma 1/27/96 To: Curt Sampson cc: John Polstra , Warner Losh , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 14 May 1997 03:14:23 MST." Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 18:51:15 +0800 From: Peter Wemm Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Curt Sampson wrote: > > I just wanted to know if it was complete > > (ie: fully functional with no missing parts, eg, 'ar' support). > > Ar support works, yes; we use it for static libraries. > > As I said, we have systems that run on ELF and nothing else, which > to me means that pretty much all support is there. If you have any > particular queries, I'm happy to answer them. Thanks.. I think I've found out what I was after now though.. > > Does it > > use elf-style shared libray versioning (ie: symlinks and internal names) > > or does it use a runtime ld.so.cache major.minor[.micro] a.out style > > system? > > It uses the elf-style system. However, there was some discussion > about how to deal with the semantics of using different versions > of the library, since the a.out system has different semantics from > the regular ELF system in terms of what it does if the desired > version is not available. Getting ELF to emulate this was looking > like a real PITA. I don't remember off-hand all the details of the > problem or the eventual result, however. I just had a rummage around, I can see the symlink stuff in bsd.lib.mk now, so I guess that answers my question.. It's using -soname with the libxx.so.major, with a symlink pointing to the current minor version. It looks like the pmax did a -soname of libxx.so.major.minor, but that wouldn't automatically find the highest minor version. Yes, it's a thorny problem.. > cjs Cheers, -Peter From owner-freebsd-alpha Wed May 14 06:14:21 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id GAA04390 for alpha-outgoing; Wed, 14 May 1997 06:14:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id GAA04382 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 06:14:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 1.60 #1) id 0wRdsb-00072S-00; Wed, 14 May 1997 07:14:05 -0600 To: Curt Sampson Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. Cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" , freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 14 May 1997 01:43:46 PDT." References: Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 07:14:05 -0600 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In message Curt Sampson writes: : I seem to recall that you had to sign an NDA to get some of the : ARC-related information, and thus the Linux developers can't actually : release source code for some of their boot-related stuff. I may be : wrong, though. Thatis right. Supposedly you have to do the same for the ARC BIOS MIPS stuff, but I got my copy from a library that was throwing their copy out... Warner From owner-freebsd-alpha Wed May 14 09:37:40 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA18840 for alpha-outgoing; Wed, 14 May 1997 09:37:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA18821 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 09:37:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 1.60 #1) id 0wRh3V-0007EX-00; Wed, 14 May 1997 10:37:33 -0600 To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Subject: More fodder for the archiver Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 10:37:33 -0600 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk http://www.azstarnet.com/~axplinux/FAQ-6.html Has a bunch of links to other places for some interesting documentation. For two of the general links I've included the URL, but the others I haven't. There is a lot of documentation online these days. For example, the directory here (ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/DECinfo/semiconductor/literature/) probably has more stuff than your harddisk can hold. Another place to look for info is this online library (http://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/info/semiconductor/literature/dsc-library.html). Some specific Alpha related manuals are listed here: Architecture Alpha Architecture Handbook, Version 3 (October 1996). PostScript, PDF. DECchip 21064-AA Microprocessor: Hardware Reference Manual Product Documentation -- October 1992, 316 Pages. Abstract, PostScript, Compressed PostScript, ZIP. DECchip 21064/21064A Alpha AXP Microprocessors: Hardware Reference Manual Product Documentation -- June 1994, 384 Pages. Abstract, PostScript, Compressed PostScript, ZIP. Scheduling and Issuing Rules for the Alpha 21164 Product Documentation -- November 1994, 8 Pages. Abstract, PostScript, Compressed PostScript, ZIP. Alpha 21164 Microprocessor Extended Data Sheet -- December 1995, 224 Pages. PostScript, PDF. Alpha Compiler Cookbook Documents information that compiler and tool developers need to know about Alpha processors to implement efficient, high-performance compilers for the Alpha 21164 microprocessor (EV5 chip) family. HTML. Warner From owner-freebsd-alpha Wed May 14 10:16:30 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA21493 for alpha-outgoing; Wed, 14 May 1997 10:16:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from moon.aa.net (moon.aa.net [204.157.220.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA21484 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 10:16:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from big.aa.net (big.aa.net [204.157.220.2]) by moon.aa.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA08811 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 10:16:20 -0700 Received: from miles.aa.net (cust93.max2.seattle.aa.net [205.199.142.93]) by big.aa.net (8.8.5/8.7.5) with ESMTP id KAA11637 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 10:16:18 -0700 X-Intended-For: Received: from miles.aa.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by miles.aa.net (8.8.5/8.8.3) with ESMTP id KAA13962 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 10:19:25 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199705141719.KAA13962@miles.aa.net> To: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-reply-to: Message from "Jordan K. Hubbard" of "Tue, 13 May 1997 14:19:21 PDT." <10399.863558361@time.cdrom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.106) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 10:19:22 -0700 From: "Reginald S. Perry" Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >>>>> "Jordan" == Jordan K Hubbard writes: >> : I don't think that's necessary - MILO isn't an ECOFF binary, >> for : example, yet the loader seems to read it in and jump to >> it just fine : (from the ARC console). >> >> Where can I get the Linux/Alpha MILO? >> From any Linux site? Try ftp.redhat.com - that's where I got >> mine. :) The original comes from ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/Digital/Linux-Alpha/Miniloader/ All sorts of cool docs and stuff there. -Reggie From owner-freebsd-alpha Wed May 14 16:41:46 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA14164 for alpha-outgoing; Wed, 14 May 1997 16:41:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from duke.cs.duke.edu (duke.cs.duke.edu [152.3.140.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA14159 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 16:41:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.cs.duke.edu (hurricane.cs.duke.edu [152.3.145.1]) by duke.cs.duke.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA12914 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 19:41:37 -0400 (EDT) Resent-From: Andrew Gallatin Received: (from gallatin@localhost) by hurricane.cs.duke.edu (8.8.4/8.7.3) id TAA01348 for freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org; Wed, 14 May 1997 19:41:36 -0400 (EDT) Resent-Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 19:41:36 -0400 (EDT) Resent-Message-Id: <199705142341.TAA01348@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> Message-Id: <199705142341.TAA01348@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> Resent-To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 In-Reply-To: <11626.863576303@time.cdrom.com> References: <199705140110.VAA31030@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> <11626.863576303@time.cdrom.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.22 under 19.15 XEmacs Lucid From: Andrew Gallatin To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Cc: Warner Losh , grant@CS.Duke.EDU Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. Date: Wed, 14 May 97 11:22:24 EDT Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by hub.freebsd.org id QAA14160 Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk It think there's a basic misconception here between 'console software' and PALcode. They are very closely related. Both are required for the operation of an alpha, but they serve very different roles. I'll try to explain the differences. Console software is is responsible for bootstrapping the system and is, in nearly all cases, flashed into flash memory on an alpha. From what I can tell, console software usually has a PALcode image inside its image, which is installed via the 'call_pall PAL_swppal' instruction during the bootstrap process. ARC/AlphaBios, SRM and Milo are all examples of console software. There is an excellent description of the bootstrap process in the 'Alpha AXP Architecture Reference Manual (2nd Edition).' Sites, Richard L., Witek, Richard T., 1995 Digital Press, ISBN 1-55558-145-5. I'll transcribe the highlights of what console software is responsible for (from page III:3-10 ) in the bootstrap process: 1) Perform a System Initialization 2) Size Memory 3) Test sufficient memory for bootstrapping 4) Load PALcode 5) Build a valid Hardware Restart Parameter Block (HWRPB) 6) Build a valid Memory Data Descriptor Table in the HWRPB 7) Initialize bootstrap page tables and map initial regions 8) Locatate and load the system software primary bootstrap image 9) Initialize processor state on all processors 10) Transfer control to system software primary bootstrap Now, if you look at the boot_cmd() function in milo.c, it appears to do all of these tasks. From what I can tell, milo is basically a direct replacement for the SRM console which grok's linux/dos/iso9660 filesystems & provids a subset of SRM's functionality. It appears to present a kernel with essentially the same PALcode, HWRPB, MDDT, environment variables, and callback I/O functions as SRM does. This explains why, with the benefit of an 'aboot' bootblock, linux can be booted via the SRM console on machines where milo doesn't exist (eg, DEC's PWS 433a & 500a). As for PALcode, that's a totally different animal. Again, according to Sites & Witek (I:1-3): A Privileged Architecture Library (PALcode) is a set of subroutines that are specific to a particualar Alpha AXP operating system implementation. These subroutines provide operating system primitives for context switching, interrupts, exceptions and memory management. PALcode is similar to the BIOS libraries that are provided in personal computers. PALcode subroutines are invoked by implementation hardware or by software CALL_PAL instructions. >From the Alpha Architecure Handbook (http://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/info/semiconductor/literature/alphahb2.pdf) 6.2 PALcode Instructions and Functions PALcode is used to implement the following functions: o Instructions that require complex sequencing as an atomic operation o Instructins which require VAX style insterlocked memory access o Privileged instructions o Memory management control, including TLB management o Context swapping o Interrupt and exception dispatching o Power-up initialiaztion & booting o Console functions o Emulation of instructions with no hardware support < Before you jump on me for the Power-up initialiaztion & booting, and console functions contradicting what I just said: I assume they're talking about the PAL_swppal instruction, the HALT instruction etc. Basically the PALcode that the console program uses > Jordan K. Hubbard writes: > > I'm not sure this is an accurate impression. From what I can tell > > from groping around in the Milo code, it appears that Milo loads the > > OSF palcode. From reading the linux documentation (which is about as > > That would be a huge breach of licensing and would bring at least one > division of Digital howling down upon Linux's neck. I really really > doubt that. Until I downloaded milo & started poking around in it, I would have thought the same thing myself. But if you actually look at it, it claims to be the OSF PALcode *AND* it has a *BSD* copyright on the file. See for yourself: <9:10am>hurricane/gallatin:eb164>pwd /tmp/milo/milo-2.1.13/palcode/eb164 <9:11am>hurricane/gallatin:eb164>head -50 platform.S /* * VID: [T1.2] PT: [Fri Aug 23 07:16:23 1996] SF: [platform.s] * TI: [/sae_users2/fdh/ebtools/unix/vice -iplatform.s -l/* -p# -DEB164 -h -m -aeb164 ] */ /* ***************************************************************************** ** * ** Copyright © 1993, 1994 * ** by Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, Massachusetts. * ** * ** All Rights Reserved * ** * ** Permission is hereby granted to use, copy, modify and distribute * ** this software and its documentation, in both source code and * ** object code form, and without fee, for the purpose of distribution * ** of this software or modifications of this software within products * ** incorporating an integrated circuit implementing Digital's AXP * ** architecture, regardless of the source of such integrated circuit, * ** provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice * ** appear in all copies, and that the name of Digital Equipment * ** Corporation not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to * ** distribution of the document or software without specific, written * ** prior permission. * ** * ** Digital Equipment Corporation disclaims all warranties and/or * ** guarantees with regard to this software, including all implied * ** warranties of fitness for a particular purpose and merchantability, * ** and makes no representations regarding the use of, or the results * ** of the use of, the software and documentation in terms of correctness, * ** accuracy, reliability, currentness or otherwise; and you rely on * ** the software, documentation and results solely at your own risk. * ** * ** AXP is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation. * ** * ***************************************************************************** ** ** FACILITY: ** ** DECchip 21164 PALcode ** ** MODULE: ** ** platform.s ** ** MODULE DESCRIPTION: ** ** Machine specific OSF/1 PALcode for the DECchip 21164 ** ** AUTHOR: ER > Basically, the OSF palcode is closed closed closed and the people > responsible for it don't want any &*%$#! free software types using it > (a direct quote). They want $$$ before they'll give it out. > Besides, it's really not worth getting into anyway because the > hardware support for the OSF palcode is abysmal (one or two SCSI > controllers and an even smaller variety of other hardware). Again, this is a console software issue. PALcode has no device-specific knowledge of the boot process. Rather the console software is responsible for knowing enough about boot devices to be able to bootstrap from them. This is why, for example, milo requires a linux kernel to be built -- it uses the linux device drivers. Ick. Yes, the SRM console is limited in that respect. It can't boot from IDE disks or many SCSI controllers. Its hard to obtain & in many ways, its an albatross around the necks of anybody attempting to run a free UNIX. > For better or for worse, it's ARC for us. > > Jordan I do think that we should attempt to at least try to leave ourselves flexible, otherwise we risk getting badly burned. As little as I like linux, there's probably a bit of a lesson to be learned from what they've done. It would a appear that they rely on OSFpalcode, and a very minimal subset of the same functionality provided by the SRM console (which is provided by Milo on systems where its impossible or inconvenient to obtain the SRM console -- eg, Alpha 300Xl, etc). I think its important to at least try to follow this model. In fact, from the milo documentation it appears that the only way linux uses the ARC console software is to load milo & then linux. (See http://www.azstarnet.com/~axplinux/milo-5.html#ss5.1): Most, if not all, Alpha AXP based systems include the Windows NT ARC firmware and this is the prefered method of booting MILO and thus Linux. Once the Windows NT firmware is running and you have the correct MILO image for your system, this method is completely generic. Eg, ARC -> NT-Palcode/Milo -> OSF-Palcode/Linux. Or 2 PAL_swppal's & and 2 bootstraps instead of the normal 1.. Anyway, I hope this helps. I'm *NOT* a linux fan & realize their boot process is a mess. I'm just attempting to understand it and am beginning to realize that there is a point to it. I came in late on this discussion & am not CC'ing this to the list because for all I know, it may have already come up. If not, and you buy what I'm saying, please forward it. Drew From owner-freebsd-alpha Wed May 14 17:24:57 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA16567 for alpha-outgoing; Wed, 14 May 1997 17:24:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from duke.cs.duke.edu (duke.cs.duke.edu [152.3.140.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA16555 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 17:24:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.cs.duke.edu (hurricane.cs.duke.edu [152.3.145.1]) by duke.cs.duke.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA13297; Wed, 14 May 1997 20:24:42 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from gallatin@localhost) by hurricane.cs.duke.edu (8.8.4/8.7.3) id UAA01463; Wed, 14 May 1997 20:24:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 20:24:42 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705150024.UAA01463@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> From: Andrew Gallatin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Warner Losh Cc: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: References: <199705141522.LAA31644@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> <199705140110.VAA31030@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> <11626.863576303@time.cdrom.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.22 under 19.15 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Warner Losh writes: > In message <199705141522.LAA31644@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> Andrew > Gallatin writes: > : It think there's a basic misconception here between 'console software' > : and PALcode. They are very closely related. Both are required for > : the operation of an alpha, but they serve very different roles. I'll > : try to explain the differences. > > You are correct. I had viewed the two as the same, with one providing > services to the OS. Like I said in a previous mail, ARC/mips is > different than ARC/alpha. Mips doesn't have PAL code at all, but does > have a number of interesting entry points that would be useful if they > could be called once the system had been booted into multi-user mode. > > : Anyway, I hope this helps. I'm *NOT* a linux fan & realize their boot > : process is a mess. I'm just attempting to understand it and am > : beginning to realize that there is a point to it. > > Yes. You do seem to understand it very well. You have given me what > I had hoped to have: Lots of pointers to books that I could afford buy > will buy anyway :-). And pointers to the Linux stuff (which I posted > one of to the alpha list). And a few things that will take quite a > while to read through. What I've read so far has been very good and > seems to be accurate (in that it doesn't contradict itself or other > things I've seen before). > > The boot process isn't at all clean, but I don't see too many ways to > make it cleaner, so more thought is needed on the matter. > > It looks like we may be able to leverage off of NetBSD's code here > since the boot stuff would likely just need to grok FAT, ufs and > isofs, whcih is what NetBSD's boot blocks already do. There may need > to be more glue on the loader than you'd need for the SRM code (since > you have to load the other PAL in), but abstracted out, Linux is just > doing a classic 2 level boot with some extra cruft tossed in. > Right. ;-) I think the quickest way to get bootstrapped might be to use the SRM console (being very careful NOT use any functions that cannot be provided by a future Milo-like FreeBSD console program). The SRM console is available for every machine I can think of with the exception of the XL series personal workstations. For most machines, the SRM console is freely available from ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware. For EB* motherboards, one can order the "Alpha EBSDK and Firmware Update Kit" from Digital (current part number QR-21B02-03, cost $75). This kit includes a CD-ROM from which you can install the SRM console. This proposed reliance on the SRM console would only be a temporary measure until such time as custom FreeBSD console software could be written. The best time for that would seem to be only after FreeBSD was stable enough to be able to tell if the OS or the bootloader was at fault when debugging ;-) One thing to keep in mind is that if you're going to do something similar to what linux does with Milo: one needs to be certain that the the kernel bootstrap process is restriced to using only the functionality that can eventually be provided with FreeBSD console software. I have the feeling that Milo provides a much smaller set of I/O routines (eg, for the OS to use before its fully bootstrapped) than does the SRM console. I think one of the reasons that Milo has DEC's blessing is that Digital UNIX & OpenVMS must rely on functionality that the SRM console provides, but that Milo doesn't. Hence, DEC can use the SRM console a form of copy-protection for their cash-cows. Another rather important issue that needs to be hashed out is what sort of disk-layout to support. Are you going to be using NT/Linux style fdisk slices, or are you going to be using the entire disk like NetBSD & Digital UNIX do? Or both? (sorry if this has already been decided, I just joined the list yesterday & haven't been able to get an archive yet ;) Drew From owner-freebsd-alpha Wed May 14 17:48:57 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA18097 for alpha-outgoing; Wed, 14 May 1997 17:48:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA18090 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 17:48:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id RAA18388; Wed, 14 May 1997 17:49:05 -0700 (PDT) To: Andrew Gallatin cc: Warner Losh , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 14 May 1997 20:24:42 EDT." <199705150024.UAA01463@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 17:49:05 -0700 Message-ID: <18384.863657345@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > provided by a future Milo-like FreeBSD console program). The SRM > console is available for every machine I can think of with the > exception of the XL series personal workstations. For most machines, > the SRM console is freely available from > ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware. For EB* motherboards, > one can order the "Alpha EBSDK and Firmware Update Kit" from Digital Just to note that the "Alpha PC" designs which people like Aspen Systems ship (http://www.aspsys.com) come only with the ARC console unless you're willing to pay $175 more for SRM. This is not made freely available anywhere - I looked into that thoroughly before writing out the check. :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-alpha Wed May 14 20:50:41 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA26384 for alpha-outgoing; Wed, 14 May 1997 20:50:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA26378 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 20:50:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 1.60 #1) id 0wRrY8-0000CN-00; Wed, 14 May 1997 21:49:52 -0600 To: Andrew Gallatin Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. Cc: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 14 May 1997 20:24:42 EDT." <199705150024.UAA01463@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> References: <199705150024.UAA01463@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> <199705141522.LAA31644@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> <199705140110.VAA31030@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> <11626.863576303@time.cdrom.com> Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 21:49:52 -0600 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk : Another rather important issue that needs to be hashed out is what sort : of disk-layout to support. Are you going to be using NT/Linux style : fdisk slices, or are you going to be using the entire disk like NetBSD : & Digital UNIX do? Or both? (sorry if this has already been decided, I : just joined the list yesterday & haven't been able to get an archive : yet ;) I was leaning toward a slices thing (optional) and a disk label, just like the current FreeBSD does. It is required for the ARC console for booting that we have a FAT file system around, and so we gotta support that at some point. Besides, the code is basically already written. :-) I think that most of the features needed by the FreeBSD kernel when running will likely be very minimal and easily translated between the various flavors of PALs (or even just use the OSF PAL routines). Warner From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 08:27:15 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA23603 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 08:27:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from duke.cs.duke.edu (duke.cs.duke.edu [152.3.140.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA23593 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 08:27:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.cs.duke.edu (hurricane.cs.duke.edu [152.3.145.1]) by duke.cs.duke.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA01820; Thu, 15 May 1997 11:27:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from gallatin@localhost) by hurricane.cs.duke.edu (8.8.4/8.7.3) id LAA09962; Thu, 15 May 1997 11:27:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 11:27:05 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705151527.LAA09962@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> From: Andrew Gallatin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Warner Losh Cc: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: References: <199705150024.UAA01463@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> <199705141522.LAA31644@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> <199705140110.VAA31030@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> <11626.863576303@time.cdrom.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.22 under 19.15 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Warner Losh writes: > : Another rather important issue that needs to be hashed out is what sort > : of disk-layout to support. Are you going to be using NT/Linux style > : fdisk slices, or are you going to be using the entire disk like NetBSD > : & Digital UNIX do? Or both? (sorry if this has already been decided, I > : just joined the list yesterday & haven't been able to get an archive > : yet ;) > > I was leaning toward a slices thing (optional) and a disk label, just > like the current FreeBSD does. It is required for the ARC console for > booting that we have a FAT file system around, and so we gotta support > that at some point. Besides, the code is basically already > written. :-) Good.. I was hoping somebody would say that. That seems to be the most flexible approach. Drew ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Andrew Gallatin http://www.cs.duke.edu/~gallatin Duke University Email: gallatin@cs.duke.edu Department of Computer Science Phone: (919) 660-6590 From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 08:37:47 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA24160 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 08:37:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from duke.cs.duke.edu (duke.cs.duke.edu [152.3.140.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA24155 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 08:37:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.cs.duke.edu (hurricane.cs.duke.edu [152.3.145.1]) by duke.cs.duke.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA01992; Thu, 15 May 1997 11:37:43 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from gallatin@localhost) by hurricane.cs.duke.edu (8.8.4/8.7.3) id LAA01984; Thu, 15 May 1997 11:37:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 11:37:42 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705151537.LAA01984@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> From: Andrew Gallatin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" CC: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: <18384.863657345@time.cdrom.com> References: <199705150024.UAA01463@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> <18384.863657345@time.cdrom.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.22 under 19.15 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Jordan K. Hubbard writes: > > provided by a future Milo-like FreeBSD console program). The SRM > > console is available for every machine I can think of with the > > exception of the XL series personal workstations. For most machines, > > the SRM console is freely available from > > ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware. For EB* motherboards, > > one can order the "Alpha EBSDK and Firmware Update Kit" from Digital > > Just to note that the "Alpha PC" designs which people like Aspen > Systems ship (http://www.aspsys.com) come only with the ARC console > unless you're willing to pay $175 more for SRM. This is not made > freely available anywhere - I looked into that thoroughly before > writing out the check. :-) Actually, most of these "Alpha PC" type systems (including Aspen's Durrango & all Enorex's systems) are just re-packaged DEC AlphaPC164 or EB164 motherboards. Firmware for which is included in the above-mentioned Alpha EBSDK. Drew ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Andrew Gallatin http://www.cs.duke.edu/~gallatin Duke University Email: gallatin@cs.duke.edu Department of Computer Science Phone: (919) 660-6590 From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 14:39:44 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA17173 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 14:39:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from cold.org (cold.org [206.81.134.103]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA17167 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 14:39:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (brandon@localhost) by cold.org (8.8.5/8.8.3) with SMTP id PAA10813 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:39:43 -0600 (MDT) Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 15:39:43 -0600 (MDT) From: Brandon Gillespie To: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: <199705151537.LAA01984@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 15 May 1997, Andrew Gallatin wrote: > Jordan K. Hubbard writes: > > > provided by a future Milo-like FreeBSD console program). The SRM > > > console is available for every machine I can think of with the > > > exception of the XL series personal workstations. For most machines, > > > the SRM console is freely available from > > > ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware. For EB* motherboards, > > > one can order the "Alpha EBSDK and Firmware Update Kit" from Digital > > > > Just to note that the "Alpha PC" designs which people like Aspen > > Systems ship (http://www.aspsys.com) come only with the ARC console > > unless you're willing to pay $175 more for SRM. This is not made > > freely available anywhere - I looked into that thoroughly before > > writing out the check. :-) > > Actually, most of these "Alpha PC" type systems (including Aspen's > Durrango & all Enorex's systems) are just re-packaged DEC AlphaPC164 > or EB164 motherboards. Firmware for which is included in the > above-mentioned Alpha EBSDK. The company I work for will be selling Aspen Alpha PC's as well as just Alpha PC stuff in general. I would like to have FreeBSD available as a no-cost default O/S option. (just a fyi) If it means anything, I've had the impression so far that by default everything comes with the ARC console, and you have to pay more for the SRM console (the amount will vary, I've seen the SRM console cost up to $2,969 for the official ''digital Unix SRM console''). I have no idea what EBSDK is. Basically, what I'm saying is please try to keep the low-cost alternatives in mind. If FreeBSD was only available off the SRM console that means to use FreeBSD you would have to pay an extra wad of cash just to switch from the ARC to the SRM console so it'll boot (people have the same problem when wanting Digital Unix vs NT). -Brandon Gillespie From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 15:03:11 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA19576 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:03:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gnostic.cynic.net (gnostic.cynic.net [198.73.220.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA19554 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:03:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost ([[UNIX: localhost]]) by gnostic.cynic.net (8.8.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA14779; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:02:25 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: gnostic.cynic.net: cjs owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 15:02:24 -0700 (PDT) From: Curt Sampson X-Sender: cjs@gnostic.cynic.net To: Warner Losh cc: Andrew Gallatin , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 14 May 1997, Warner Losh wrote: > I think that most of the features needed by the FreeBSD kernel when > running will likely be very minimal and easily translated between the > various flavors of PALs... I'm not entirely up on the services the various flavours of PALcode provide, but I'm extremely dubious that it would be easy, or even possible, to have a single kernel work with more than one flavour of PALcode. Looking at the instruction sets they provide it's obvious that they are very different. Also, I understand that the PALcode in MILO is not idential to the PALcode in the SRM console firmware. cjs Curt Sampson cjs@portal.ca Info at http://www.portal.ca/ Internet Portal Services, Inc. `And malt does more than Milton can Vancouver, BC (604) 257-9400 To justify God's ways to man.' From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 15:14:13 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA20529 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:14:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA20521 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:14:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 1.60 #1) id 0wS8mH-0001Pj-00; Thu, 15 May 1997 16:13:37 -0600 To: Curt Sampson Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. Cc: Andrew Gallatin , freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 15 May 1997 15:02:24 PDT." References: Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 16:13:36 -0600 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In message Curt Sampson writes: : I'm not entirely up on the services the various flavours of PALcode : provide, but I'm extremely dubious that it would be easy, or even : possible, to have a single kernel work with more than one flavour : of PALcode. Looking at the instruction sets they provide it's : obvious that they are very different. The key here is that we can generally load in our own PALs (ala milo) and then it won't be an issue. : Also, I understand that the PALcode in MILO is not idential to the : PALcode in the SRM console firmware. So long as the few PALs that are called are functionally the same, it shouldn't be an issue.... Now trying to get this to work with both NT's PAL set and SRM's PAL set w/o loading our own might be very interesting indeed. And might be hard like you describe since we'd need a HAL-like layer over the PALs. Warner From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 15:20:28 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA20772 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:20:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from duke.cs.duke.edu (duke.cs.duke.edu [152.3.140.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA20764 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:20:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.cs.duke.edu (hurricane.cs.duke.edu [152.3.145.1]) by duke.cs.duke.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA08811; Thu, 15 May 1997 18:20:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from gallatin@localhost) by hurricane.cs.duke.edu (8.8.4/8.7.3) id SAA12115; Thu, 15 May 1997 18:20:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 18:20:14 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705152220.SAA12115@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> From: Andrew Gallatin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Brandon Gillespie Cc: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: References: <199705151537.LAA01984@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> X-Mailer: VM 6.22 under 19.15 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Brandon Gillespie writes: > On Thu, 15 May 1997, Andrew Gallatin wrote: > > > > Actually, most of these "Alpha PC" type systems (including Aspen's > > Durrango & all Enorex's systems) are just re-packaged DEC AlphaPC164 > > or EB164 motherboards. Firmware for which is included in the > > above-mentioned Alpha EBSDK. > > The company I work for will be selling Aspen Alpha PC's as well as just > Alpha PC stuff in general. I would like to have FreeBSD available as > a no-cost default O/S option. (just a fyi) Cool! > If it means anything, I've had the impression so far that by default > everything comes with the ARC console, and you have to pay more for the > SRM console (the amount will vary, I've seen the SRM console cost up to > $2,969 for the official ''digital Unix SRM console''). > > I have no idea what EBSDK is. See http://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/info/semiconductor/literature/sdkrmf.pdf The DEC part number is QR-21B02-03. I understand it costs $75. > Basically, what I'm saying is please try to keep the low-cost alternatives > in mind. If FreeBSD was only available off the SRM console that means to > use FreeBSD you would have to pay an extra wad of cash just to switch from > the ARC to the SRM console so it'll boot (people have the same problem > when wanting Digital Unix vs NT). Right. $75 isn're really a wad, but that could change at the drop of a hat. What I'm suggesting is to use SRM as an interim solution until such time as an ARC-loadable console program can be developed. Drew ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Andrew Gallatin http://www.cs.duke.edu/~gallatin Duke University Email: gallatin@cs.duke.edu Department of Computer Science Phone: (919) 660-6590 From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 15:32:24 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA21280 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:32:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from duke.cs.duke.edu (duke.cs.duke.edu [152.3.140.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA21275 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:32:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.cs.duke.edu (hurricane.cs.duke.edu [152.3.145.1]) by duke.cs.duke.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA09021; Thu, 15 May 1997 18:32:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from gallatin@localhost) by hurricane.cs.duke.edu (8.8.4/8.7.3) id SAA28646; Thu, 15 May 1997 18:32:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 18:32:19 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705152232.SAA28646@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> From: Andrew Gallatin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Warner Losh Cc: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.22 under 19.15 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Warner Losh writes: > In message Curt Sampson writes: > : I'm not entirely up on the services the various flavours of PALcode > : provide, but I'm extremely dubious that it would be easy, or even > : possible, to have a single kernel work with more than one flavour > : of PALcode. Looking at the instruction sets they provide it's > : obvious that they are very different. > > The key here is that we can generally load in our own PALs (ala milo) > and then it won't be an issue. > > : Also, I understand that the PALcode in MILO is not idential to the > : PALcode in the SRM console firmware. Download milo & have a look. The palcode claims to be the OSF PAL code. Also, since Linux can boot from either SRM or Milo, it would seem that the OSF PAL code in Milo & in the SRM console are "close enough." > So long as the few PALs that are called are functionally the same, it > shouldn't be an issue.... > > Now trying to get this to work with both NT's PAL set and SRM's PAL > set w/o loading our own might be very interesting indeed. And might > be hard like you describe since we'd need a HAL-like layer over the > PALs. Seems easiest to just use the same OSF PALcode that Linux is using. Since DEC is paying people to support Linux, one would hope that it would always be freely available. Drew ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Andrew Gallatin http://www.cs.duke.edu/~gallatin Duke University Email: gallatin@cs.duke.edu Department of Computer Science Phone: (919) 660-6590 From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 15:48:09 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA22471 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:48:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gnostic.cynic.net (gnostic.cynic.net [198.73.220.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA22465 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:48:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost ([[UNIX: localhost]]) by gnostic.cynic.net (8.8.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA14854; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:47:44 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: gnostic.cynic.net: cjs owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 15:47:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Curt Sampson X-Sender: cjs@gnostic.cynic.net To: Warner Losh cc: Andrew Gallatin , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 15 May 1997, Warner Losh wrote: > The key here is that we can generally load in our own PALs (ala milo) > and then it won't be an issue. No. You'll just have a heck of a lot of different PALcode versions to write. From looking at the source to MILO, it appears that they have at least six different versions of the PALcode for different machines, and a MILO compiled with any particular version will only work on matching machines, nothing else. Whereas, if you use the OSF1 PALcode, you have to go to the effort of duplicating PALcode only on those machines that don't support OSF1 PALcode at all, rather than all new Alpha machines. cjs Curt Sampson cjs@portal.ca Info at http://www.portal.ca/ Internet Portal Services, Inc. `And malt does more than Milton can Vancouver, BC (604) 257-9400 To justify God's ways to man.' From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 16:31:05 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA24619 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 16:31:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gnostic.cynic.net (gnostic.cynic.net [198.73.220.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA24588 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 16:30:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost ([[UNIX: localhost]]) by gnostic.cynic.net (8.8.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA15033; Thu, 15 May 1997 16:30:09 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: gnostic.cynic.net: cjs owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 16:30:08 -0700 (PDT) From: Curt Sampson X-Sender: cjs@gnostic.cynic.net To: Andrew Gallatin cc: Brandon Gillespie , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: <199705152220.SAA12115@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 15 May 1997, Andrew Gallatin wrote: > > Basically, what I'm saying is please try to keep the low-cost alternatives > > in mind. If FreeBSD was only available off the SRM console that means to > > use FreeBSD you would have to pay an extra wad of cash... > > Right. $75 isn're really a wad.... Also, would there be any licencing problems if a vendor with the disk used that to load SRM console on a machine before shipping it out? If not, there's really no extra cost. cjs Curt Sampson cjs@portal.ca Info at http://www.portal.ca/ Internet Portal Services, Inc. `And malt does more than Milton can Vancouver, BC (604) 257-9400 To justify God's ways to man.' From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 16:36:43 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA24790 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 16:36:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from agora.rdrop.com (root@agora.rdrop.com [199.2.210.241]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA24785 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 16:36:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from duke.cs.duke.edu (duke.cs.duke.edu [152.3.140.1]) by agora.rdrop.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA28820 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 16:36:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.cs.duke.edu (hurricane.cs.duke.edu [152.3.145.1]) by duke.cs.duke.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA09847; Thu, 15 May 1997 19:34:37 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from gallatin@localhost) by hurricane.cs.duke.edu (8.8.4/8.7.3) id TAA03950; Thu, 15 May 1997 19:34:36 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 19:34:36 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705152334.TAA03950@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> From: Andrew Gallatin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Curt Sampson Cc: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.22 under 19.15 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Curt Sampson writes: > On Thu, 15 May 1997, Warner Losh wrote: > > > The key here is that we can generally load in our own PALs (ala milo) > > and then it won't be an issue. > > No. You'll just have a heck of a lot of different PALcode versions > to write. From looking at the source to MILO, it appears that they > have at least six different versions of the PALcode for different > machines, and a MILO compiled with any particular version will only > work on matching machines, nothing else. Right. *Exactly* like SRM. There's a unique version of the SRM console for all the machines it supports, partially because each machine requires a different version of the OSF Palcode. > Whereas, if you use the > OSF1 PALcode, you have to go to the effort of duplicating PALcode > only on those machines that don't support OSF1 PALcode at all, > rather than all new Alpha machines. I think the PALcode included in Milo was obtained directly from Digital by Milo's author. From looking at the copyright's & RCS id's on it, it would appear to really be the OSF palcode. I think we're again blurring the distinction between console software and PALcode, so here's the executive summary of what I said yesterday. Sorry to sound like a broken record ;-) SRM & Milo are each different types of console software. They exist to, among other things, to initialize the hardware (build HWRPB, size memory, etc), load-up the PALcode for the OS to use & bootstrap the OS. Once the OS is fully up & running, the console software is irrelevant. PALcode is used to mask differences between different types of hardware, and to present to the OS a fairly uniform interface across different alpha platforms for the purpose of things like exception & trap handling, interrupt dispatching, IPL setting, context-swapping, emulation of instructions not present on all platforms, etc. The PALcode is used in conjunction with the OS. As far as I can tell, Digital UNIX, NetBSD, and Linux all use the OSF PALcode. NT appears to use its own, which has probably been munged somehow for use by a 32-bit OS. Drew ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Andrew Gallatin http://www.cs.duke.edu/~gallatin Duke University Email: gallatin@cs.duke.edu Department of Computer Science Phone: (919) 660-6590 From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 17:23:26 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA26660 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 17:23:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail2.digital.com (mail2.digital.com [204.123.2.56]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA26655 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 17:23:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dnaunix.pa.dec.com by mail2.digital.com (5.65 EXP 4/12/95 for V3.2/1.0/WV) id AA04436; Thu, 15 May 1997 17:18:09 -0700 Received: by dnaunix.pa.dec.com; id AA00719; Thu, 15 May 1997 17:18:13 -0700 To: Andrew Gallatin Cc: Warner Losh , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG From: "Chris G. Demetriou" Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 15 May 97 18:32:19 EDT." <199705152232.SAA28646@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> Date: Thu, 15 May 97 17:18:12 -0700 Message-Id: <717.863741892@dnaunix.pa.dec.com> X-Mts: smtp Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > : Also, I understand that the PALcode in MILO is not idential to the > > : PALcode in the SRM console firmware. > > Download milo & have a look. The palcode claims to be the OSF > PAL code. It is, but it is _not_ identical to the OSF PALcode in the SRM console firmware in several ways. At minimum: (1) there are some interfaces provided by the SRM console's OSF PALcode on some platforms which are not provided by the MILO OSF PALcode, and (2) machine-checking handling/logout frames are different. > Also, since Linux can boot from either SRM or Milo, it would seem that > the OSF PAL code in Milo & in the SRM console are "close enough." They are not. There are operations provided by the OSF PALcode on (at least) EB64+ and EB164 machines which are not provided by MILO's OSF PALcode. If you're using EB64+ or EB164 systems with 'native' OSF PALcode and try to use the hardware directly rather than using the PALcode ops provided by the firmware (for the appropriate operations), you will not be receiving many interrupts... cgd From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 17:27:32 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA26819 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 17:27:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail1.digital.com (mail1.digital.com [204.123.2.50]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA26813 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 17:27:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dnaunix.pa.dec.com by mail1.digital.com (5.65 EXP 4/12/95 for V3.2/1.0/WV) id AA27044; Thu, 15 May 1997 17:23:03 -0700 Received: by dnaunix.pa.dec.com; id AA00729; Thu, 15 May 1997 17:23:07 -0700 To: Andrew Gallatin Cc: Curt Sampson , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG From: "Chris G. Demetriou" Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 15 May 97 19:34:36 EDT." <199705152334.TAA03950@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> Date: Thu, 15 May 97 17:23:07 -0700 Message-Id: <727.863742187@dnaunix.pa.dec.com> X-Mts: smtp Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > No. You'll just have a heck of a lot of different PALcode versions > > to write. From looking at the source to MILO, it appears that they > > have at least six different versions of the PALcode for different > > machines, and a MILO compiled with any particular version will only > > work on matching machines, nothing else. > > Right. *Exactly* like SRM. There's a unique version of the SRM console > for all the machines it supports, partially because each machine > requires a different version of the OSF Palcode. Yup. The question is who maintains them. > > Whereas, if you use the > > OSF1 PALcode, you have to go to the effort of duplicating PALcode > > only on those machines that don't support OSF1 PALcode at all, > > rather than all new Alpha machines. > > I think the PALcode included in Milo was obtained directly from > Digital by Milo's author. From looking at the copyright's & RCS id's > on it, it would appear to really be the OSF palcode. The PALcode in Milo is, as far as i know, the same code (or similar to the code) that's in the EBSDK. Let me repeat again: The PALcode interfaces provided by Milo are vitally, functionally different on several platforms from the interfaces provided by the SRM console on those platforms. > As far as I can tell, Digital UNIX, NetBSD, and Linux all use the OSF > PALcode. NT appears to use its own, which has probably been munged > somehow for use by a 32-bit OS. Digital UNIX and NetBSD use the same PALcode interfaces. Linux uses slightly different ones, on some systems (a subset of those used by NetBSD/DU). It's worth noting that (last i heard), Linux cannot 'reboot' if booted from the SRM console. At least from where I stand, that's a bug... chris From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 17:51:52 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA27710 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 17:51:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.50]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA27705 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 17:51:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id RAA16212; Thu, 15 May 1997 17:43:50 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199705160043.RAA16212@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. To: cgd@pa.dec.com (Chris G. Demetriou) Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 17:43:50 -0700 (MST) Cc: gallatin@CS.Duke.EDU, imp@village.org, freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <717.863741892@dnaunix.pa.dec.com> from "Chris G. Demetriou" at May 15, 97 05:18:12 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > Download milo & have a look. The palcode claims to be the OSF > > PAL code. > > It is, but it is _not_ identical to the OSF PALcode in the SRM console > firmware in several ways. > > At minimum: > > (1) there are some interfaces provided by the SRM console's > OSF PALcode on some platforms which are not provided > by the MILO OSF PALcode, and > > (2) machine-checking handling/logout frames are different. (3) The SRM code for OSF/1 requires 32M. The Linux code only requires 16M(*) (*) according to the guy here at the University of Arizona who did the Linux stuff. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 18:06:40 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA28351 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 18:06:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail1.digital.com (mail1.digital.com [204.123.2.50]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA28346 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 18:06:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dnaunix.pa.dec.com by mail1.digital.com (5.65 EXP 4/12/95 for V3.2/1.0/WV) id AA18561; Thu, 15 May 1997 18:03:19 -0700 Received: by dnaunix.pa.dec.com; id AA00771; Thu, 15 May 1997 18:03:22 -0700 To: Terry Lambert Cc: cgd@pa.dec.com (Chris G. Demetriou), gallatin@CS.Duke.EDU, imp@village.org, freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG From: "Chris G. Demetriou" Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 15 May 97 17:43:50 PDT." <199705160043.RAA16212@phaeton.artisoft.com> Date: Thu, 15 May 97 18:03:22 -0700 Message-Id: <769.863744602@dnaunix.pa.dec.com> X-Mts: smtp Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > At minimum: > > > > (1) there are some interfaces provided by the SRM console's > > OSF PALcode on some platforms which are not provided > > by the MILO OSF PALcode, and > > > > (2) machine-checking handling/logout frames are different. > > (3) The SRM code for OSF/1 requires 32M. The Linux code only > requires 16M(*) > > (*) according to the guy here at the University of Arizona who did the > Linux stuff. And incorrect. Jeff Hsu (who did the initial port of NetBSD/alpha to AXPpci33-family systems) was running his AXPpci33 with only 16M, with the standard Digital SRM console. SRM is a pig -- it eats 2M right off. MILO apparently does better than that, but that's because of the console software, not the PALcode. In my opinion, you'd have to be ... brave to try and use an Alpha with 16M anyway, but there's no denying that the SRM eats more memory than it "should." cgd From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 20:07:03 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA03728 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 20:07:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA03723 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 20:07:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id UAA20816; Thu, 15 May 1997 20:07:22 -0700 (PDT) To: Curt Sampson cc: Andrew Gallatin , Brandon Gillespie , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 15 May 1997 16:30:08 PDT." Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 20:07:22 -0700 Message-ID: <20813.863752042@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > Right. $75 isn're really a wad.... > > Also, would there be any licencing problems if a vendor with the > disk used that to load SRM console on a machine before shipping it > out? If not, there's really no extra cost. Just so long as said vendor also pays the appropriate Digital cost center their pound of flesh, no problem. And I'd be a little careful with that $75 figure - I think only certain systems qualify for that, and if you buy a Durango MB you will pay $175, not $75, for the SRM console. Jordan From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu May 15 21:50:25 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA07950 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 21:50:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from moon.aa.net (moon.aa.net [204.157.220.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA07945 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 21:50:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from big.aa.net (big.aa.net [204.157.220.2]) by moon.aa.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA06912; Thu, 15 May 1997 21:50:05 -0700 X-Intended-For: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from miles.aa.net (cust114.max5.seattle.aa.net [206.125.79.114]) by big.aa.net (8.8.5/8.7.5) with ESMTP id VAA20484; Thu, 15 May 1997 21:49:58 -0700 Received: from miles.aa.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by miles.aa.net (8.8.5/8.8.3) with ESMTP id VAA16191; Thu, 15 May 1997 21:50:06 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199705160450.VAA16191@miles.aa.net> To: Curt Sampson cc: Warner Losh , Andrew Gallatin , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-reply-to: Message from Curt Sampson of "Thu, 15 May 1997 15:02:24 PDT." Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.106) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 21:50:04 -0700 From: "Reginald S. Perry" Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >>>>> "Curt" == Curt Sampson writes: Curt> On Wed, 14 May 1997, Warner Losh wrote: >> I think that most of the features needed by the FreeBSD kernel >> when running will likely be very minimal and easily translated >> between the various flavors of PALs... Curt> I'm not entirely up on the services the various flavours of Curt> PALcode provide, but I'm extremely dubious that it would be Curt> easy, or even possible, to have a single kernel work with Curt> more than one flavour of PALcode. Looking at the instruction Curt> sets they provide it's obvious that they are very different. Curt> Also, I understand that the PALcode in MILO is not idential Curt> to the PALcode in the SRM console firmware. Another possibility is to write PAL code optimized for FreeBSD. :-) -Reggie From owner-freebsd-alpha Fri May 16 07:27:56 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA00629 for alpha-outgoing; Fri, 16 May 1997 07:27:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from duke.cs.duke.edu (duke.cs.duke.edu [152.3.140.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA00622 for ; Fri, 16 May 1997 07:27:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.cs.duke.edu (hurricane.cs.duke.edu [152.3.145.1]) by duke.cs.duke.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA21141; Fri, 16 May 1997 10:27:14 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from gallatin@localhost) by hurricane.cs.duke.edu (8.8.4/8.7.3) id KAA05260; Fri, 16 May 1997 10:27:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 10:27:14 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705161427.KAA05260@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> From: Andrew Gallatin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: "Chris G. Demetriou" Cc: Warner Losh , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: <717.863741892@dnaunix.pa.dec.com> References: <199705152232.SAA28646@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> <717.863741892@dnaunix.pa.dec.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.22 under 19.15 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Chris G. Demetriou writes: > > > : Also, I understand that the PALcode in MILO is not idential to the > > > : PALcode in the SRM console firmware. > > > > Download milo & have a look. The palcode claims to be the OSF > > PAL code. > > It is, but it is _not_ identical to the OSF PALcode in the SRM console > firmware in several ways. > > At minimum: > > (1) there are some interfaces provided by the SRM console's > OSF PALcode on some platforms which are not provided > by the MILO OSF PALcode, and > > (2) machine-checking handling/logout frames are different. Thanks for clearing that up. > > Also, since Linux can boot from either SRM or Milo, it would seem that > > the OSF PAL code in Milo & in the SRM console are "close enough." > > They are not. > > There are operations provided by the OSF PALcode on (at least) EB64+ > and EB164 machines which are not provided by MILO's OSF PALcode. > > If you're using EB64+ or EB164 systems with 'native' OSF PALcode and > try to use the hardware directly rather than using the PALcode ops > provided by the firmware (for the appropriate operations), you will > not be receiving many interrupts... It looks like linux uses conditional compilation to deal with those issues, thus elminating the possibility of a truley generic kernel. Ick. Thanks again, Drew From owner-freebsd-alpha Fri May 16 08:25:35 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA03599 for alpha-outgoing; Fri, 16 May 1997 08:25:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from cold.org (cold.org [206.81.134.103]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA03593 for ; Fri, 16 May 1997 08:25:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (brandon@localhost) by cold.org (8.8.5/8.8.3) with SMTP id JAA12622; Fri, 16 May 1997 09:23:11 -0600 (MDT) Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 09:23:11 -0600 (MDT) From: Brandon Gillespie To: Curt Sampson cc: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 15 May 1997, Curt Sampson wrote: > On Thu, 15 May 1997, Andrew Gallatin wrote: > > > > Basically, what I'm saying is please try to keep the low-cost alternatives > > > in mind. If FreeBSD was only available off the SRM console that means to > > > use FreeBSD you would have to pay an extra wad of cash... > > > > Right. $75 isn're really a wad.... > > Also, would there be any licencing problems if a vendor with the > disk used that to load SRM console on a machine before shipping it > out? If not, there's really no extra cost. Yes and no. DEC doesn't care who has what media, they just care that the license is paid in the end. So if a vendor pre-loaded SRM, they would still have to pay it somewhere (i.e. they would just wrap it into the cost anyway). Furthermore, its not that cheap! Some lucky sod may be able to get it for $75, or there abouts, assuming that the company they are buying from swung a sweet deal with DEC (which Aspen has :) However, usually you are looking in the four digits for the SRM Console. DEC may have made the Alpha which we all love and adore, but they LOVE to do one thing: charge phonomenal prices for trivial things. Also, there are some companies that have unknown/secret ;) deals with DEC in that they CANNOT PUT THE SRM CONSOLE on their systems. Call Enorex (www.enorex.com) and ask them if you can get a machine with the SRM console. They will tell you no, period, nada, not happening. This is because of a special deal they have with DEC which also has the side effect of getting them VERY LOW prices (and thus passing them on to you)--but they have to ``sell NT'' on every box (the guy said the Boot ROM actually couldn't change the firmware somehow, and thats how it came from DEC... dunno, coulda just been a sales rep's low knowledge :) -Brandon Gillespie From owner-freebsd-alpha Fri May 16 09:52:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA07752 for alpha-outgoing; Fri, 16 May 1997 09:52:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from duke.cs.duke.edu (duke.cs.duke.edu [152.3.140.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA07747 for ; Fri, 16 May 1997 09:52:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.cs.duke.edu (hurricane.cs.duke.edu [152.3.145.1]) by duke.cs.duke.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA23881; Fri, 16 May 1997 12:52:10 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from gallatin@localhost) by hurricane.cs.duke.edu (8.8.4/8.7.3) id MAA02679; Fri, 16 May 1997 12:52:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 12:52:10 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705161652.MAA02679@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> From: Andrew Gallatin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Brandon Gillespie CC: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.22 under 19.15 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Brandon Gillespie writes: > On Thu, 15 May 1997, Curt Sampson wrote: > > On Thu, 15 May 1997, Andrew Gallatin wrote: > > > > > > Basically, what I'm saying is please try to keep the low-cost alternatives > > > > in mind. If FreeBSD was only available off the SRM console that means to > > > > use FreeBSD you would have to pay an extra wad of cash... > > > > > > Right. $75 isn're really a wad.... > > > > Also, would there be any licencing problems if a vendor with the > > disk used that to load SRM console on a machine before shipping it > > out? If not, there's really no extra cost. > > Yes and no. DEC doesn't care who has what media, they just care that the > license is paid in the end. So if a vendor pre-loaded SRM, they would > still have to pay it somewhere (i.e. they would just wrap it into the cost > anyway). Furthermore, its not that cheap! Some lucky sod may be able to > get it for $75, or there abouts, assuming that the company they are buying Anybody could be that lucky sod. Some of us sods w/educational discounts could get it for less. > from swung a sweet deal with DEC (which Aspen has :) However, usually you > are looking in the four digits for the SRM Console. DEC may have made the > Alpha which we all love and adore, but they LOVE to do one thing: charge > phonomenal prices for trivial things. According to Digital's E-store: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digital's Electronic Connection For assistance call: 1-800-DIGITAL Item Information DES_2_1505 QR-21B02-03 Alpha EB S/W Dev Kit,Frmwr V2 Adj. % Service: 1 Year 2 Years 3 Years Gross Net Gross Net Gross Net List: 75.00 75.00 Standard: Description: Type a command letter, then press B Commands are: Order Back Next Main Quit Exit -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (For non old-school DEC customers -- the 'E-store' is a price-list accessible via telneting to orders.sales.digital.com. You can apply for an account at the login screen if you don't already have one. You can order merchandise priced online via a call to 1-800-DIGITAL or via your local DEC rep, if you've got one. I've been using it for years to check quotes on alpha workstations & to order small things.). According to page 2 of http://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/info/semiconductor/literature/mbsdkpb.pdf (Alpha Motherboards Software Developers's Kit and Firmware Update V2.1 (Ergo, QR-21B02-03 Alpha EB S/W Dev Kit,Frmwr V2) Firmware: The firmware updates contain the latest version of firmware for Alpha motherboards and include the following utility and images: - Firmware update utility - Alpha SRM console images - Windows NT firmware images - Windows NT HAL images - Debug Monitor firmware images Firmware images are supplied for the following Alpha motherboards - AlphaPC164 - AlphaPC64 - EB64 (excluding Alpha SRM Console & Windows NT images) - EB64+ - EB66 (excluding Alpha SRM Console images) - EB66+ - EB164 < snip > The kicker is in the fine print, around the middle of the page: Except for Alpha SRM Console software, you can redistribute all of the kit's software at no additional cost. The Alpha SRM Console software is provided for evaluation purposes only. Now, I'd guess that would mean that a company could not ship the SRM console. However, I'm not sure what 'evaluation purposes only' means. I read it as 'personal, per-machine use' Any lawyers out there who know what this really means? > Also, there are some companies that have unknown/secret ;) deals with DEC > in that they CANNOT PUT THE SRM CONSOLE on their systems. Call Enorex I'll take your word for it, maybe they can't. But I'd bet any end-user could. > (www.enorex.com) and ask them if you can get a machine with the SRM > console. They will tell you no, period, nada, not happening. This is > because of a special deal they have with DEC which also has the side > effect of getting them VERY LOW prices (and thus passing them on to > you)--but they have to ``sell NT'' on every box (the guy said the Boot ROM > actually couldn't change the firmware somehow, and thats how it came from > DEC... dunno, coulda just been a sales rep's low knowledge :) Probably just had the f/ww update jumper in the 'no update' position. ;-) Drew