Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2012 21:37:09 -0400 From: James Jones <james.voip@gmail.com> To: Juli Mallett <juli@clockworksquid.com> Cc: "freebsd-mips@FreeBSD.org" <freebsd-mips@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Anyone in need of FreeBSD-supported MIPS hardware? Message-ID: <C6D1082E-505C-40FF-94C9-CFF1ABEC054C@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <CACVs6=-%2BKxHpr2M4cdccE-hREXWrT-pc6mtFkUBUjxR=VFO_OA@mail.gmail.com> References: <CACVs6=-%2BKxHpr2M4cdccE-hREXWrT-pc6mtFkUBUjxR=VFO_OA@mail.gmail.com>
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I am working on some embedded router projects and could use some. :) Sent from my iPhone On Nov 1, 2012, at 9:30 PM, "Juli Mallett" <juli@clockworksquid.com> wrote: > I have a large number of MIPS boards / systems that I'd like to make > available to interested developers who have clear goals for which > hardware would be useful. I have some small and cheap RouterBoard and > RouterStation hardware for someone who's just looking to get their > feet wet. > > I also have a bunch of Octeon hardware from low-end to high-end, > mostly Octeon Plus (i.e. CN5xxx-based), but also a couple of Octeon XL > boards. All of the Octeon hardware I have is SMP. Some is very > esoteric and would require a lot of effort to fully support (but > sample Linux code should be available; in one case there is a vendor > that is refusing to release GPL'd sources, which I may ask the FSF for > help with.) > > I have a large number of Radisys ATCA-7220 boards which are varying > degrees of functional. These consist of an e500-based LMP running > Linux (basically a host/management system), two Octeon CN5860 > (16-core, high-end) units, each with 8GB of RAM, connected to a > high-end 10GbE switch, with a large number of SFP+ ports, which is > capable of acting as an ATCA switch as well. I have two ATCA > chassises and can recommend ones that are available cheaply on eBay > for someone who is interested in adding something loud and overwrought > to their test setup. > > Each Octeon unit on the Radisys ATCA boards is a PCI target attached > to the LMP. I have Octeon evaluation boards which can be used as > PCI-X targets or hosts, and a couple of Octeon boards which can be > used as PCIe targets or hosts. In PCI target mode, the Octeon system > can be booted and debugged by the host and can be used as a > programmable, intelligent NIC running FreeBSD or a standalone > application. FreeBSD does not support Octeon devices in target mode > at present, but it should be easy to do so (both for the host and > target), and I can put you in touch with people who have done this > before with FreeBSD if you have any questions. > > Some of the hardware I have can support USB, some can support SATA > disks, and some can only support CF. Although the Radisys blades > provide a lot of RAM and CPU, to turn them into a MIPS package cluster > would require first solving some issues with their networking and > second providing network attached storage of some sort. > > If you're interested, please contact me privately. I would prefer to > give hardware only to people who have some idea of what they will work > on and who do not currently have any MIPS (or at least not any Octeon, > if requesting Octeon hardware) hardware of their own. > > Also, if someone has 5u of rack space and a bunch of power and extant > 10GbE infrastructure, I can provide a 5u ATCA chassis loaded with > hardware. I'm sure that would be useful in general for people doing > networking work with FreeBSD, as the hardware can very easily be used > to do real networking loads at 10GbE line rate, or as a simple traffic > generator, but it's also loud and hot and annoying. ATCA is "fun". > (If anyone has a spare one of those nice single-slot bench-top ATCA > development kit enclosures, please let me know; I would be quite eager > to purchase or trade for it, or several if possible. Or even just a > non-finicky single-board ATCA bench power supply. "Carrier grade" > seems to mean that the tools involved are so complex and numerous that > several people need to be employed full-time to keep the thing > running. I digress.) > > If you're interested in just a small project, too, I'm happy to ship > hardware out for a brief duration and receive it back. The Octeon > stuff is generally kind-of fun because of all the interesting offload > stuff it has. Why not add software RAID offload support to FreeBSD, > or create infrastructure for compression offload in the kernel to go > with our crypto offload? I had a lot of fun working on using Octeon's > SHA offload to do BitCoin mining, and that's the sort of thing that > can even be done over SSH as a regular user. > > Anyway, I know there's a lot of developers out there interested in > FreeBSD on MIPS, and I'd love to help any and all get started. > > Thanks, > Juli. > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-mips@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-mips > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-mips-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" >
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