freebsd on mips64

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <86068e730805191018l3a6feedal1d47fd77f5b50f72 at mail.gmail.com>
            "Jerry Toung" <jrytoung at gmail.com> writes:
: The company I work for is very interested in moving from FreeBSD/x86 to
: MIPS.

Most excellent.

: To start, we are planning on getting an evaluation board from either RAZA
: microelectronics
: with an XLR processor (MIPS64) or from Cavium with an OCTEON (MIPS64).

FreeBSD does run on an XLR processor, but there's no supporave for it in
the CVS sources.  RAZA Microelectronics doesn't release enough
information about their parts without an NDA that prevents their
release.

FreeBSD also runs on a Cavium OCTEON processor.  However, the code to
do that is in limbo at the moment due to a last minute issue that came
up with it.  I'm sure the issue will be resolved in short order, but
until then, it only works in my office at home...

: I understand that the FreeBSD/mips port is still under development. Because
: we are motivated,
: I would like to join the project and help as much as I can.
: I went to http://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/mips and got the snapshot from
: August 10, 2007 and also
: installed gxemul (GXemul 0.4.2) from the ports of my 6.2 machine. I wasn't
: able to retrieve gonzo's patches at
: http://gonzo.kiev.ua/mips/freebsd-gxemul-0.4.1.patch as per src/EMULATION

They have been folded into gxemul 0.4.2.1 and newer.

: 1- Please look at the pasted output at the bottom of the email and advise on
: what's wrong so
: I can boot to single user mode or to where ever you guys are now.

I think starting with the FreeBSD/mips that's in CVS would be a better
start.

: 2- Based on my requirements above (xlr or octeon), could you advise on where
: I should start/what I will need for
: this port so I can get up to speed and contribute? (i.e docs, books, current
: source code, etc)

To get up to speed on the port, I'd recommend buying the 'See Mips
Run, 2nd Edition.'  This is a very good book, despite having Linux in
the subtitle....

I'd grab the current CVS tree.  It is presently missing the compilers,
which we should make some patches for soon.

: 3- what is the current road map? what's on the TODO list as of now.

The current road map is to consolidate our the current sources by
fixing bugs that bite people installing on real hardware, as well as
expanding the number of cores supported.  This is a bit vague, which
gives you the freedom to contribute in many different places.

Warner