From storycrafter at gmail.com  Sat Oct 18 16:52:48 2008
From: storycrafter at gmail.com (Mark Martin)
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 18:52:48 -0500
Subject: [emancipation-discuss] [osol-discuss] Project Proposal -- Port
	to MIPS architecture
In-Reply-To: <e40c28290810181624q2b49188dh229cf00a012e6a3b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <e40c28290810181549p2d88ad59qc29c9d27a5d3db5d@mail.gmail.com>
	<c2315a540810181603v22858a8ci103698f7ee4a256c@mail.gmail.com>
	<e40c28290810181624q2b49188dh229cf00a012e6a3b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <e40c28290810181652g4ac20c44p2700edb3e15db6d0@mail.gmail.com>

[Resent for Reply-all]

On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 6:03 PM, Martin Bochnig <martin at martux.org> wrote:

>
> +1
>
> Except that it would be nice if somebody would make the Polaris port
> functional, before starting a new port.
> Also, why MIPS, not ARM? Isn't MIPS dead a bit?
>

Thanks for the vote and the feedback.

I believe the PowerPC is either lacking consensus on a platform or lacking
other resources (or both).  I agree that the PowerPC has some  attractive
features, but lack of a valid, available platform and resources I think is
contributing to its dormancy.  I believe that interest continues for that
platform, but once Sun Labs discontinued development support, the project
seems to have gone into hibernation.

Someone mentioned interest in an ARM a short while ago, but in my research,
I could not find a solid, available platform that provided enough physical
resources -- namely 256MB to 512MB RAM, which I believe would be a minimum
footprint.  It is my opinion that OpenSolaris is a tough nut to crack on
embedded platforms.  What makes the Movidis platform interesting is support
for larger memory footprints (8GB) and the intended markets, including web
application hosting.  Use of the Octeon processor is also interesting to me,
personally.


>
> %martin
>
>
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From johnsonnenschein at gmail.com  Sat Oct 18 23:53:39 2008
From: johnsonnenschein at gmail.com (John Sonnenschein)
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 23:53:39 -0700
Subject: [emancipation-discuss] [osol-discuss] Project Proposal -- Port
	to MIPS architecture
In-Reply-To: <e40c28290810181652g4ac20c44p2700edb3e15db6d0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <e40c28290810181549p2d88ad59qc29c9d27a5d3db5d@mail.gmail.com>
	<c2315a540810181603v22858a8ci103698f7ee4a256c@mail.gmail.com>
	<e40c28290810181624q2b49188dh229cf00a012e6a3b@mail.gmail.com>
	<e40c28290810181652g4ac20c44p2700edb3e15db6d0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <F3A33274-CEB6-441D-A3AF-88AE1687C66A@gmail.com>

FWIW, I think that a MIPS port may have more success than a powerpc  
port for the simple matter that MIPS is so well understood in academia  
that a decent emulator that emulates a real system can be found  
relatively easily, and failing that the architecture is simple enough  
that one, sufficiently motivated, could write a MIPS emulator to the  
proper specs

+1

On 18-Oct-08, at 4:52 PM, Mark Martin wrote:

> [Resent for Reply-all]
>
> On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 6:03 PM, Martin Bochnig <martin at martux.org>  
> wrote:
>
> +1
>
> Except that it would be nice if somebody would make the Polaris port  
> functional, before starting a new port.
> Also, why MIPS, not ARM? Isn't MIPS dead a bit?
>
> Thanks for the vote and the feedback.
>
> I believe the PowerPC is either lacking consensus on a platform or  
> lacking other resources (or both).  I agree that the PowerPC has  
> some  attractive features, but lack of a valid, available platform  
> and resources I think is contributing to its dormancy.  I believe  
> that interest continues for that platform, but once Sun Labs  
> discontinued development support, the project seems to have gone  
> into hibernation.
>
> Someone mentioned interest in an ARM a short while ago, but in my  
> research, I could not find a solid, available platform that provided  
> enough physical resources -- namely 256MB to 512MB RAM, which I  
> believe would be a minimum footprint.  It is my opinion that  
> OpenSolaris is a tough nut to crack on embedded platforms.  What  
> makes the Movidis platform interesting is support for larger memory  
> footprints (8GB) and the intended markets, including web application  
> hosting.  Use of the Octeon processor is also interesting to me,  
> personally.
>
>
> %martin
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> emancipation-discuss mailing list
> emancipation-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/emancipation-discuss



From Joerg.Schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de  Mon Oct 20 09:37:29 2008
From: Joerg.Schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (Joerg Schilling)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:37:29 +0200
Subject: [emancipation-discuss] [powerpc-discuss] [osol-discuss] Project
 Proposal -- Port to MIPS architecture
In-Reply-To: <F3A33274-CEB6-441D-A3AF-88AE1687C66A@gmail.com>
References: <e40c28290810181549p2d88ad59qc29c9d27a5d3db5d@mail.gmail.com>
	<c2315a540810181603v22858a8ci103698f7ee4a256c@mail.gmail.com>
	<e40c28290810181624q2b49188dh229cf00a012e6a3b@mail.gmail.com>
	<e40c28290810181652g4ac20c44p2700edb3e15db6d0@mail.gmail.com>
	<F3A33274-CEB6-441D-A3AF-88AE1687C66A@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <48fcb3c9.9WMbR4OONTaYK2df%Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de>

John Sonnenschein <johnsonnenschein at gmail.com> wrote:

> FWIW, I think that a MIPS port may have more success than a powerpc  
> port for the simple matter that MIPS is so well understood in academia  
> that a decent emulator that emulates a real system can be found  
> relatively easily, and failing that the architecture is simple enough  
> that one, sufficiently motivated, could write a MIPS emulator to the  
> proper specs

it depends....

If yoou think of the opportinity to run OpenSolaris in wlan routers, 
a MIPS port will have more success in case it is able to run with a
limited amount of RAM and in case that there will also be drivers for
FLASH memory.

J?rg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       js at cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)  
       schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de     (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily