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I'd like to start giving ~monthly updates on the status of mips@ in |
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Gentoo. |
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|
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Recently I received a Loongson 3A system (quad-core 1.35GHz, 16GB RAM, |
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AMD graphics) which is significantly faster and more stable than any |
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other mips system I have. |
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|
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mips@ is currently assigned or cc'd on 29 bugs. This number is down from |
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probably >50 at the beginning of March. |
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|
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My list of to-do items consists of: |
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|
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== Switch to stable profiles == |
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https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/pull/7672 |
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|
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While keeping mips unstable (KEYWORDS=~mips) I plan to switch the |
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profiles from exp to stable so that no new breakage is added. |
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|
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To that end, I've been working to test and keyword packages until we can |
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flip the switch without adding any breakage ourselves. See the github |
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pull request for the current status. I'll periodically rebase the branch |
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as I add more keywords to the main tree. |
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|
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My plan is to add stable 17.0 mips profiles when the keywording is |
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sorted out and kill two birds with one stone. |
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|
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== Loongson 3A support == |
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|
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The Loongson 3A system I received requires a number of out of tree |
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patches to the kernel, gcc, binutils, and glibc. I've seen their |
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developers working to upstream kernel patches, but it's slow going and |
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there are a lot of them. |
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|
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I haven't seen much work to upstream the other patches. I'm not sure how |
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to reasonably support hardware requiring so many out-of-tree patches. |
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|
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== n64 (the ABI!) support == |
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https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=442548 |
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https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=513042 |
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|
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I want to support the tree main ABIs: Old 32 ("o32"), New 32 ("n32"), |
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and New 64 ("n64"). |
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|
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n32 is equivalent to amd64's x32 ABI: 64-bit ABI but with 32-bit |
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pointers. It's the default ABI we use for 64-bit MIPS. |
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|
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I'd like to offer n64 support as well, but gcc is not quite ready. At |
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this point I have figured out the gcc build system enough to hack |
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something together that works. I just need to... upstream something I |
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guess? |
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|
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== n64 toolchain in n32 system == |
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https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477956 |
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|
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n32 (and o32) only offer 31-bits of address space (2GB). That's not |
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sufficient to link large libraries like webkit-gtk. For n32 systems, I'd |
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like the toolchain binaries to be n64, to avoid these problems. |
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|
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That's going to be some amount of work on top of regular n64 support, |
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but hopefully not too much. multilib/ABI_MIPS support already exists and |
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works. |
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|
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== stages and installation media == |
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https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=150402 |
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https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=348647 |
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|
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With so many subarchitectures, ABIs, and two byte orderings providing |
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stages and installation media has been a pain point. |
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|
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I'd like to automate as much of this as possible. I really need Kumba to |
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build a new SGI CD, but well, that bug's been open since 2006. |
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