New architecture support

[Peter Jeremy]

On Sun, 2006-Aug-06 20:26:45 -0300, Duane Whitty wrote:
>I'm somewhat interested in this as well.  Towards that end would it be
>correct for me to believe the process is easier if the architecture
>already has a UNIX(tm) style operating system installed and operating and
>if there are GNU tools available for this architecture already (assembler,
>compiler, linker)?

The Un*x-like OS is not especially critical but a working toolchain is.

>What I am thinking about is HP's HP 9000 PA-II RISC architecture.  Seems to
>me that if the above mentioned tools are available that about 85% of the
>work is already done, but then I only have limited experience in this area.

Maybe 85% of the total effort (starting from nothing).  The other
critical item is access to the system programming information for the
system - and I'm not sure how readily available this is for the HP-PA.

Currently FreeBSD has support for 6 platforms.  There is a total of
10MB or 304KLOC in the MD-trees - this is about 50KLOC per CPU.
Whilst you may be able to leverage off existing MD code (especially
the NetBSD HP-PA port), a port to a new architecture is a non-trivial
undertaking.

>I really like the HP 9000 platform and I would love to see FreeBSD on it.

The HP 9000 is really more NetBSD territory than FreeBSD territory.
Unless you can get a critical mass of developers who are interested,
the port is a non-starter.  The Alpha port died because there wasn't
sufficient interest to keep it going - and much of the loss of interest
was a result of Compaq killing the Alpha.  I suspect that a HP 9000
port would be starting from a much smaller base.

-- 
Peter Jeremy
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