From owner-freebsd-sparc  Tue Nov 17 17:22:42 1998
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From: Mikael Karpberg <karpen@ocean.campus.luth.se>
Message-Id: <199811180120.CAA03098@ocean.campus.luth.se>
Subject: Re: Porting process (Again)
In-Reply-To: <19981117191824.ELKO23830.fep03-svc@winworkstation> from Paolo Di Francesco at "Nov 17, 98 08:19:59 pm"
To: paipai@tin.it (Paolo Di Francesco)
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 02:20:07 +0100 (CET)
Cc: freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG
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> Step #2) Choose a version to start from. (Maybe 3.0?)

-current. There is just NO choice here.

> Step #3) Isolate the asm (i386) code from the FreeBSD kernel code. This
> mean :
>   Step #3.1) Isolate the asm directory and then the asm source files.
>   Many of the directories have no asm code, so we need concentrate on
>   the dirs which HAVE asm code. Then, in these dirs many files have no
>   asm code. And so on. So a document with a tree like
> 
>    sys ----+
>            +-> dir #1               Nothing to modify
>            +-> dir #2 +             Here some asm files
>                       +-> file #1   to rewrite (partially)
>                       +-> file #2   to rewrite (totally)
> 
> and so on...

(Please don't use tabs in something like that. Especially not with TAB < 8.)

I just want to butt in and say that you should probably NOT start with
the i386 specific stuff and convert. Instead, do a verbatim copy of any 
.../alpha/... directories into corresponding .../sparc/... directories,
and convert those. That should make you go with the newest architechtures
in the kernel, and hold your hand in that the alpha port should have most
things you need to port separated in a nice fashion.

In short, start with a port, not with the i386 code as not everything that
needs to be written for a port may be written for i386 (but instead take
advantage of the fact that FreeBSD is tilted towards i386 (I presume)).

> Step #3.2) Understand priority. What we need NOW to boot... For example
> we do not need "low priority" files which are not usefull for the first
> kernel version.

Right. You want the booting, VM, and a working console to print debug things
on first.

  /Mikael

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