From owner-freebsd-sparc Thu Nov 26 12:07:48 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA00397 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Thu, 26 Nov 1998 12:07:48 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from gjp.erols.com (alex-va-n008c079.moon.jic.com [206.156.18.89]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA00391 for ; Thu, 26 Nov 1998 12:07:45 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from gjp@gjp.erols.com) Received: from gjp.erols.com (localhost.erols.com [127.0.0.1]) by gjp.erols.com (8.9.1/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA28782; Thu, 26 Nov 1998 15:07:08 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from gjp@gjp.erols.com) X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.1 12/23/97 To: Erik Cameron cc: Eivind Eklund , eddy@ISI.EDU, Paolo Di Francesco , freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG From: "Gary Palmer" Subject: Re: What we need In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 26 Nov 1998 13:14:54 CST." <19981126131454.A5740@bsd.uchicago.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1998 15:07:08 -0500 Message-ID: <28778.912110828@gjp.erols.com> Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Erik Cameron wrote in message ID <19981126131454.A5740@bsd.uchicago.edu>: > > The real problem I've found with this is is the (relatively) large > amount of assembly code involved in building libc; libc being the > first thing to work on, IMHO. >From memory, half the assembly stuff in libc is optimized versions of speed-critical components (ntohl,bcopy, etc). I seem to remember their being C versions as well. This isn't true for everything (such as the syscall interface), but it cuts down on the ammount of work that needs to be done. A bunch of the .S files you see being compiled/assembled when you make libc are syscall veneers that are machine generated from a single copy of the file. So, yes, assembly is required to build libc, but not as much as you might think. And to be perfectly honest, the biggest hurdle is going to be the kernel, not libc, and I think thats where your focus should be. You can boot and debug a kernel without ever needing a libc. Gary -- Gary Palmer FreeBSD Core Team Member FreeBSD: Turning PC's into workstations. See http://www.FreeBSD.ORG/ for info To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message