From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Feb 29 08:44:22 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 63A9F1065671 for ; Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:44:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.192.90]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 245CF8FC1A for ; Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:44:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) Received: from TEDSDSK (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.197.130]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with SMTP id m1T8iKll046089; Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:44:21 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: "Ivan Voras" , Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:45:22 -0800 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1914 In-Reply-To: Importance: Normal X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-3.0 (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.192.90]); Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:44:21 -0800 (PST) Cc: Subject: RE: FreeBSD support this hardware? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:44:22 -0000 > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Ivan Voras > Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 3:30 AM > To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > Subject: Re: FreeBSD support this hardware? >=20 >=20 > Robe wrote: >=20 > > And here's the link to the CPU page=20 > http://www.dmp.com.tw/tech/Vortex86SX/ > >=20 > > Can anybody tell me if FreeBSD support this hardware? >=20 > Judging by the "SX" label and the information on the page, no, because > it doesn't have a FPU. >=20 I'm surprised they claim Linux compatability since I thought Linux required an FPU as well. FreeBSD 4.X supports these with the kernel option MATH_EMULATE or GPL_MATH_EMULATE Later versions of FreeBSD got rid of that option. NetBSD 4 still has MATH_EMULATE but it's buggy. There was a discussion last month on the NetBSD mailing list about whether it would be a good thing to fix it. You could, possibly, recompile FreeBSD (or more likely, picobsd, see "man picobsd" for information) with the -msoft-float option to gcc to build a version that would not require a FPU. But you still need an emulator that would supply the floating point operations. gcc includes (or included) a generic implementation of these functions in dp-bit.c and fp-bit.c. Of course, it would be under the GPL. Or you could get the FreeBSD 4.11 source and dig up the ancient emulator that was under the BSD license and use that. Here's a thread fragment I found that discusses the process with regards to building libgcc=20 http://www.busybox.net/lists/uclibc/2002-May/003404.html Good luck - some things are better off left dead, the non-FPU cpus were one of these things. Ted