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Date:      21 Aug 2000 03:39:37 -0000
From:      lyndon@bsd4us.org
To:        freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: am I missing something?
Message-ID:  <20000821033937.11253.qmail@bsd4us.org>

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On Thu, 17 Aug 2000, Narvi wrote:> It just happens that the following things have not came together into one
> person yet:
>        * time
>        * desire to work on freebsd-sparc
>        * ability to work on the level required to kickstart it
>        * hardware

I have always had desire and hardware...  I'm making the time.  I believe there
is a difference between being able "to work on the level required" and
understanding *how* to accomplish a port to a new architecture - regardless of
previous work that has been done in sister OS's or in sister ports
(FreeBSD/alpha).

For two years I've been on this list.  Every six months or so, someone wants to
know the progess of the port, which starts this huge discussion about how we
can borrow from this code, read from that useless document, or just give up and
use insert-other-prefix-hereBSD.  Admittedly, when I first became interested in
porting FreeBSD to SPARC, I couldn't write helloworld.c without consulting a
manual.  While I've overcome that obstacle (and then some), I still know next
to nothing about how to proceed.  

We can't blame eachother for not knowing what needs to be done.  We can blame
everyone on this list (myself included) of not doing anything other than
arguing about how to start.  Here's what I'm doing:
1) investigating the use of the sparc-rtems ports for use in cross-compilation
 (I never did get the cross-compile port of gcc done)
2) trying to read and understand the kernel source tree, in structure, use, 
and in the code
3) building a to-do list for coding efforts

My goal is a working sparc/v8 kernel.  I don't have a timeframe.  To answer the
question before it's asked, there is an amount of work done for sparc/v9:  as I
don't have ready access to an UltraSPARC (for building an OS, that is), I cannot
testify to the completeness or viability of this code.  I would imagine that at
least parts of this work are leverageable, even though it is based on
FreeBSD-3.something.

Truthfully, I don't know how to close this email:  it sounds a plea, a rant,
an accusation, and an ultimatum.

Stay tuned for more lunacy...

<:)  Lyndon
http://bsd4us.org/



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