From owner-freebsd-mips@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Mar 24 15:49:58 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-mips@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 671FB1065674 for ; Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:49:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from harmony.bsdimp.com (bsdimp.com [199.45.160.85]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 18A648FC40 for ; Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:49:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by harmony.bsdimp.com (8.14.2/8.14.1) with ESMTP id m2OFm18i038265; Mon, 24 Mar 2008 09:48:01 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 09:48:42 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <20080324.094842.1645216744.imp@bsdimp.com> To: mario.mania@gmail.com From: "M. Warner Losh" In-Reply-To: <7882d4790803240739p3ec3266ei97efe02878d25a6@mail.gmail.com> References: <7882d4790803240739p3ec3266ei97efe02878d25a6@mail.gmail.com> X-Mailer: Mew version 5.2 on Emacs 21.3 / Mule 5.0 (SAKAKI) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-mips@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: New in the list X-BeenThere: freebsd-mips@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to MIPS List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:49:58 -0000 In message: <7882d4790803240739p3ec3266ei97efe02878d25a6@mail.gmail.com> "Mario Augusto Mania" writes: : Hi : : My name is Mario Augusto Mania, i'm from Brazil, and work with freebsd : since 2001. Nowaday, I use a small wireless radio/bridge like a : Zinwell G-120, a small hardware with a RTL8186 microcontroller. In the : www.realtek.com.tw, i saw that this microcontroller is a RISC MIPS : R3000 Compatible. I use a linux basead firmwares in these devices, : but, like a freebsd-lover, I want to run a FreeBSD inside these : "boxes" :). : Is FreeBSD-mips project what i need? How is the project status? Anyone : run on theses devices? In theory, FreeBSD could run on this box. I say in theory because a lot of work would need to happen to make this a reality. First, you'd need to write the r3k pmap code. There's plenty of places that have similar code, so that shouldn't be a huge deal. You'd need to implement drivers for the pieces of hardware you'd like to use. Fortunately, I believe these are mostly documented. However, there are some issues with doing this. It isn't a true R3000 core. See http://www.linux-mips.org/wiki/Lexra for details on why. http://www.linux-mips.org/wiki/Realtek_SOC gives good information about the Realtek chip and pointers to datasheets. So there's no FreeBSD firmware, today, that can run on it. It would be a bit of a project to make it work on the device, but would be fun. The FreeBSD/mips port is primarily targeting mips32 and mips64 compliant processors (both r1 and r2), but has the infrastructure needed to support older MIPS hardware if someone were to take the time to do it. Warner