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On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Panagiotis Christopoulos |
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<pchrist@g.o> wrote: |
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> On 23:13 Sat 10 Jul , Matt Turner wrote: |
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>> To summarize the hardware collection |
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>> - 5 MIPS III/Loongson little-endian STMicroelectronics systems (Lemote, Gdium) |
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>> - 11 MIPS IV big-endian SGI systems |
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>> - 3 MIPS IV little-endian Cobalt systems |
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>> - 2 MIPS64 selectable-endian Broadcom systems |
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>> |
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>> What do you guys think? |
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> Hi Matt, |
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> |
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> Sorry for my interference, but I want to write some random thoughts |
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> that come and go, for while now. It's good that you asked about what |
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> hardware we have these days. Btw, I have two SGI O2, a r5k and a r10k. |
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> The r10k is useless for linux (unless something hanpened inside the last |
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> ~2 years that I served in the army and was away). The r5k is in good |
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> condition but *extremely slow*. Once upon a time, when the mips stable |
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> keyword wasn't dropped yet, I wanted to become a mips arch tester, but |
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> found it extremely difficult to work with my r5k, cause it was very very |
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> slow as I said before. I tried to find cheap and better mips hardware |
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> but with no luck. Those days, Lemote just started to exist, and I |
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> couldn't find any reseller in Europe. The SGI stopped direct support of |
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> o2/origin hardware(unless I'm wrong), which makes it difficult for |
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> someone to find spare parts in case something happens to a SGI machine |
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> (unless you 're in US). |
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> From the side of the gentoo linux developer/arch tester/(at least from |
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> my side), we really need new, good and fast hardware in order to work |
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> productively. For a big project, such the Gentoo Mips Project, we need |
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> more people with good and probably also different hardware. But! For |
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> example, it's very difficult to do any gentoo development(ebuild |
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> writing/testing, arch testing, compiling stuff, even to build stages with |
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> catalyst), with embedded hardware or with old SGI hardware. |
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> So, my question is, what hardware can a gentoo dev get these days, in |
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> order to work productively? And another question, a project such as the |
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> gentoo MIPS project, should see where the future goes and not to live |
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> in the past, supporting old hardware crap, so where does the MIPS future |
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> go anyway? Will it go to embedded devices only? Will it also go to |
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> desktop systems/production servers? |
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> |
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> (I really believe that the gentoo MIPS project died the last years cause |
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> people didn't have the right hardware to work) |
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> |
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> -- |
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> Panagiotis Christopoulos ( pchrist ) |
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> ( Gentoo Lisp Project ) |
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|
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I absolutely agree that the lack of usably fast hardware is the biggest problem. |
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|
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While installing software on the O2 is slow enough as it is, having |
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some kind of quality-assurance from Gentoo/MIPS in the form of |
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ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="mips -~mips" would definitely make installing |
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software on the O2 less painful. Believe me, I've been there. |
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Compiling some package on a 300MHz R5000 takes hours, and then you |
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find out that it's clearly _never_ been tested when it breaks your |
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entire system so you've got to start the whole process over with a |
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different version. |
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|
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I think the future of Linux/MIPS for regular users lies with |
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Lemote/GDium hardware. (We're probably going to not worry about things |
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like Octeon, for instance, since they're so expensive.) You'll notice |
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that many MIPS kernel developer work for companies using MIPS in |
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embedded environments though. |
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|
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SGI systems are cheap and available though, so I think we should make |
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an effort to support them. The SGI Origin 300, with quad 600 MHz |
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R14ks, 4 MB L2 cache each, and 4 GB RAM is quite a fast system. |
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Unfortunately, the port has never been finished. O300s are quite cheap |
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(< 300 USD) and would make excellent Linux/MIPS systems, if only the |
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kernel port were completed. |
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|
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I hope I've answered your questions. Please let me know. |
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|
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Thanks, |
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Matt |