Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 15:24:57 -0500 From: "Kevin M. Dulzo" <kdulzo@caffeine.gerp.org> To: freebsd-sparc@freebsd.org Subject: Advancing FreeBSD/sparc Message-ID: <20000822152456.A13607@caffeine.gerp.org>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
So far in the little time I have been able to divert to working on different aspects of this port I have stumbled upon a few issues. The first being the "chosen" platforms to be supported. As I recall, historically this was a sponsored project to bring FreeBSD onto the sparc4u (UltraSparc) family of platforms. After this support was dropped it was mentioned that many only have older sparc4c and sparc4m available to do any work on. I see no reason to exclude older machines from a port of FreeBSD as many of these lunch/pizza boxes can be had rather cheaply and are quite effective at accomplishing tasks. I plan to work heavily on the 4c and 4m initially as a 4u machine is quite out of my reach. The next issue being the approach to get this whole beast moving in any direction at all. Some have pointed the need to get the bootloader and kernel so that a single-user prompt milestone can be reached. Others have pointed to the alpha ports use of the NetBSD kernel and loader to build libc and then userland. Personally, my sparc assembly is a little rusty to say the least and the second option sounds quite within my reach to spend my time on. Another issue had to deal with tracking changes/committing and which branch(es) should be used. I have no idea on this one, current would make the most sense, a majority of my familiarity is in the stable branch. Since there seems to be little activity or mildly off-topic activity my excitement at seeing an 'N' in front of my freebsd-sparc box was quelled. I was hoping we can spawn some quality productive threads to really thrash out ideas with current information and possibly a new zeal. -Kevin P.S. Anyone have any Sparc 5 memory they want to loan or sell me cheaply =) -- :Kevin M. Dulzo:ccna.ccda:freebsd:everything_else: --eyes betray a soul and bear its thinking --beyond words they say so many things to me To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20000822152456.A13607>