From owner-freebsd-mips@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 12 18:03:39 2012 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 39F6B106566C for ; Thu, 12 Jul 2012 18:03:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from hans@beastielabs.net) Received: from mail.beastielabs.net (beasties.demon.nl [82.161.3.114]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 821178FC12 for ; Thu, 12 Jul 2012 18:03:38 +0000 (UTC) Received: from merom.hotsoft.nl (merom.hotsoft.nl [192.168.0.12]) by mail.beastielabs.net (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id q6CHtDZV011411; Thu, 12 Jul 2012 19:55:14 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from hans@beastielabs.net) Message-ID: <4FFF0F81.4020104@beastielabs.net> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2012 19:55:13 +0200 From: Hans Ottevanger User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:13.0) Gecko/20120621 Thunderbird/13.0.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: John Long References: <20120711123136.GA32221@inbox.lv> <20120712165729.GA16915@inbox.lv> In-Reply-To: <20120712165729.GA16915@inbox.lv> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-mips@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Porting FreeBSD to Loongson 3A (RS780e) 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: Thu, 12 Jul 2012 18:03:39 -0000 On 07/12/12 18:57, John Long wrote: >> I mean one-off for 3A, because >> >> No.1, loongson 3 is for server application, and is fit for "the Power to >> Serve" > > Well given none of the Loongson chips are server chips and none of the > current builds (AFAIK) support ECC RAM, and since Lemote is selling a laptop > with the 3A (not a server) I don't think the 3A is a server chip. And I > really don't care, because the Loongson works fine for a home server, even > the lowly 2F. > >> No.2, loongson 3a is mips64r2 compatible just like XLP832 and Octeon 6330 >> which are already supported in FreeBSD/MIPS, and the chipset rs780e >> for 3a is a common > > Ok, but OpenBSD and Debian already Loongson 2F so how hard can it be, given > the code already exists and in the case of OpenBSD comes with a good > license... and Loongson 2F is MIPS III compatible and runs 64 or 32 bit mode > executables. What does the "mips64r2" give you beyond MIPS III? > >> hardware, we can easily porting freebsd to 3a. >> No.3, loongson 3a is the first cpu in Loongson 3, 3b is pin-to-pin >> compatible to 3a, if we got 3a brought up >> 3b is easy, > > Support is already available in OpenBSD for 2E and 2F. Personally I am happy > with OpenBSD but I would also be happy to see as many OS as possible > supporting Loongson because I think MIPS is a good architecture and there > haven't been many general purpose machines made since SGI got out of the > workstation business. And Lemote is a good company... > Hi, I still have a Lemote Yeeloong netbook somewhere. It came with Linux. It is a nice though quite simple system, based on a Loongson 2F CPU. The main problem was the regular occurrence of system freezes due to a CPU design problem. If I remember well the OpenBSD guys also stumbled over this issue and I am not sure whether they ever completely solved it. It is also worth noting that a port of FreeBSD to this netbook was started as a GSoC 2010 project: http://wiki.freebsd.org/SOC2010VladimirSerbinenko though I do not know whether it was ever finished and if the code is available anywhere and how stale it is with respect to current developments. I do remember that there were quite a few issues with the caching and the choice of the page size etc. See this thread: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-mips/2010-August/001096.html and the discussions about Yeeloong here: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-mips/2010-September/thread.html Kind regards, Hans Ottevanger