From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by oss.sgi.com (8.11.2/8.11.3) id f7OBsdV11745 for linux-mips-outgoing; Fri, 24 Aug 2001 04:54:39 -0700 Received: from t111.niisi.ras.ru (IDENT:root@[193.232.173.111]) by oss.sgi.com (8.11.2/8.11.3) with SMTP id f7OBsZd11741 for ; Fri, 24 Aug 2001 04:54:35 -0700 Received: from t06.niisi.ras.ru (t06.niisi.ras.ru [193.232.173.6]) by t111.niisi.ras.ru (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id PAA29920; Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:54:19 +0400 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by t06.niisi.ras.ru (8.7.6/8.7.3) with UUCP id PAA00514; Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:30:14 +0400 Received: from niisi.msk.ru (t34 [193.232.173.34]) by niisi.msk.ru (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id NAA20010; Fri, 24 Aug 2001 13:37:24 +0400 (MSD) Message-ID: <3B86206C.832A9801@niisi.msk.ru> Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 13:37:48 +0400 From: "Gleb O. Raiko" Organization: NIISI RAN X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en,ru MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Maciej W. Rozycki" CC: Jun Sun , linux-mips@fnet.fr, linux-mips@oss.sgi.com Subject: Re: [patch] linux 2.4.5: Export mips_machtype References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-linux-mips@oss.sgi.com Precedence: bulk "Maciej W. Rozycki" wrote: > It sounds reasonable. We may also check the Alpha port for solutions -- > it supports multiple dissimilar systems as well. Alpha is easy and simple from my POV, it has just SRM or MILO, kernel at fixed location anyway. In our case, almost every box has own location for kernel varying from 0x80000000 for brave people to 0x80100000 for people who doesn't care much about 1 MB :-). (Well, I clearly understand it's firmware requirements, not people's preferences. Almost.) Then, various binary formats of the kernel image... I personally prefer PPC with its _machine tricks and SPARC for BTFIXUP stuff. However, I doubt whether we could support single kernel image for all MIPS boxes. MIPS is typical embedded platform, where standards are favourite because there are so many to choose from. BTW, I remember, Ralf tried to implement CPU type recognition at run-time, he dropped his efforts after he realized nobody could use this feature because boxes are so different. Regards, Gleb.