Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 10:35:41 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: dwalton@psiint.com (Dave Walton) Cc: terry@lambert.org, jmr@computing.com, questions@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: PowerPC Port? Message-ID: <199603071735.KAA14213@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.A32.3.91.960306140602.50412D-100000@vv.psiint.com> from "Dave Walton" at Mar 7, 96 08:35:42 am
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> > > rlyon> Motorola does produce a workstation range based on the power pc. The > > > rlyon> specifications look ok but I would imagine the price is > > > rlyon> high. Currently the only operating system supported is Windows > > > rlyon> NT. (Billy boy must be laughing all the way to the bank.) > > > > > The FreeBSD port is intended for use in embedded systems by the company > > that provided the loaner. It will just happen to also run everything > > it needs to run to be a real port, as well. 8-). > > I'm not sure how silly a question this is, but... > Will the PowerPC port be able to run Linux binaries, and such? The FreeBSD PPC port will run x86 code in an ABI emulation environment (that is, the user space code is emulated and the kernel space code is the same PPC kernel as for native PPC code). I haven't done any work on the Linux call gate in the PPC x86 environment. The Linux code is complicated by register passing of arguments to system calls (thank God BSD didn't go this route -- it was threatening to for a while). Basically, enough to run the x86 BSDI NetScape on a remote X server; it can't run locally because my console code goes to hell in a hand-basket. It is *extremely* fragile, to the point of being locally unusable without a seperate system on the local net; the serial ports don't work either, and there is only minimal driver support so far. I have a couple of VM problems that I can't track without a working console, and Arrow Electronics sent my PPCBug docs (that they weren't supposed to send until the sent me a FAX and I sent one back) via the wrong shipper and they ended up getting lost on the way to me. Since this was after they got dropped at the warehouse (the wrong location), I have to decide if *another* $250 is worth it to me for a set of materials I think should be up for anonymous FTP anyway. It's made worse because PPCBug will be going away in the near future (replaced by Open Firmware). It's probably more important that I be able to run AIX binaries, which I have only partial support for. It wants a lot of work on the kernel exported symbol set because of the way AIX works, which basically means starting on the LKM rewrite I've been threatening for a long time now, and putting a small linker and exported symbol space manipulation code into the kernel. I also have minimal JFS code hacks in the form of logical device export code in a hacked up devfs (so it can handle the variant coding on the disk for the PPCBug vs. Open Firmware boot, and so that the drive space agregation can be done below the JFS itself -- a requirement of JFS). Anyway, it's getting there, but it's not done yet. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199603071735.KAA14213>