Best hardware platform for native compiling...

Best hardware platform for native compiling...

[David Jander]

Hi all,

This might sound as a stupid question (and maybe sligtly off-topic), but I 
have not found an (easy) answer and I suspect many on this list will have a 
good suggestion to make:

We are developing (and maintaining) different embedded linux systems based on 
different PowerPC processors. From small MPC852T with little RAM and Flash, 
up to 400MHz MPC5200- and MPC5121e based systems that resemble more a PC or 
netbook than an embedded system in terms of RAM and storage.

For smaller systems we use a customized ELDK-based OS and cross-compile almost 
everything on a PC.

For bigger systems we often run a debian-derived OS like Ubuntu, and many 
pieces are compiled natively on the target... just because it is easy and 
quick to do, and cross-compiling certain packages can be a real pain.
But, a 400 MHz e300 core is not really fast for compiling, so I have been 
considering buying some sort of PowerPC-based system with a faster processor, 
just as a "build-server" (a G5 would do wonders I guess).

It seems like the only real option is one of the smaller IBM Power servers, 
but that seems overkill to me. We also don't feel like buying some old 
second-hand Apple gear.

Is there any other available and affordable platform that can be used to run 
linux and compile software natively for 32-bit PowerPC?

Any suggestion is welcome!

Best regards,

P.S.: I am writing this while running "dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot" on the 
package "xserver-xfbdev" from ubuntu 9.04 on a MPC5121e.... it will take 40 
minutes ;-)

-- 
David Jander
Protonic Holland.

Re: Best hardware platform for native compiling...

[David Jander]

On Tuesday 21 July 2009 11:52:51 you wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 11:16:52AM +0200, David Jander wrote:
> > For bigger systems we often run a debian-derived OS like Ubuntu, and many
> > pieces are compiled natively on the target... just because it is easy and
> > quick to do, and cross-compiling certain packages can be a real pain.
> > But, a 400 MHz e300 core is not really fast for compiling, so I have been
> > considering buying some sort of PowerPC-based system with a faster
> > processor, just as a "build-server" (a G5 would do wonders I guess).
> >
> > It seems like the only real option is one of the smaller IBM Power
> > servers, but that seems overkill to me. We also don't feel like buying
> > some old second-hand Apple gear.
> >
> > Is there any other available and affordable platform that can be used to
> > run linux and compile software natively for 32-bit PowerPC?
>
> Have a look at the YDL PowerStation:
>
> http://us.fixstars.com/products/powerstation/
>
> It is more or less a quad G5.

This looks great! Thanks a lot for the tip.
I still have to figure out how to get one of these delivered to Europe, but 
that shouldn't be such a big deal...

Best regards,

-- 
David Jander
Protonic Holland.

Re: Best hardware platform for native compiling...

[Gabriel Paubert]

On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 12:31:36PM +0200, David Jander wrote:
> On Tuesday 21 July 2009 11:52:51 you wrote:
> > On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 11:16:52AM +0200, David Jander wrote:
> > > For bigger systems we often run a debian-derived OS like Ubuntu, and many
> > > pieces are compiled natively on the target... just because it is easy and
> > > quick to do, and cross-compiling certain packages can be a real pain.
> > > But, a 400 MHz e300 core is not really fast for compiling, so I have been
> > > considering buying some sort of PowerPC-based system with a faster
> > > processor, just as a "build-server" (a G5 would do wonders I guess).
> > >
> > > It seems like the only real option is one of the smaller IBM Power
> > > servers, but that seems overkill to me. We also don't feel like buying
> > > some old second-hand Apple gear.
> > >
> > > Is there any other available and affordable platform that can be used to
> > > run linux and compile software natively for 32-bit PowerPC?
> >
> > Have a look at the YDL PowerStation:
> >
> > http://us.fixstars.com/products/powerstation/
> >
> > It is more or less a quad G5.
> 
> This looks great! Thanks a lot for the tip.
> I still have to figure out how to get one of these delivered to Europe, but 
> that shouldn't be such a big deal...

Well, I got one recently here in Spain. Shipping charges are fairly 
large (it's not exactly a light and compact machine). But the current 
dollar exchange rate helps ;-)

Now I have not yet found the way to install Debian on it
(it refuses to boot Debian's CDROM), but I have not had
time to investigate either.

	Regards,
	Gabriel

Re: Best hardware platform for native compiling...

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

On Tue, 2009-07-21 at 14:00 +0200, Gabriel Paubert wrote:
> Well, I got one recently here in Spain. Shipping charges are fairly 
> large (it's not exactly a light and compact machine). But the current 
> dollar exchange rate helps ;-)
> 
> Now I have not yet found the way to install Debian on it
> (it refuses to boot Debian's CDROM), but I have not had
> time to investigate either.

It uses SLOF which should be capable of decent netbooting, so it should
be possible to either netboot yaboot and have it load the kernel and
initramfs, or maybe make a zImage with both included and netboot that.

Cheers,
Ben.

Re: Best hardware platform for native compiling...

[David Jander]

On Tuesday 21 July 2009 14:00:07 you wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 12:31:36PM +0200, David Jander wrote:
> > On Tuesday 21 July 2009 11:52:51 you wrote:
> > > On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 11:16:52AM +0200, David Jander wrote:
> > > > For bigger systems we often run a debian-derived OS like Ubuntu, and
> > > > many pieces are compiled natively on the target... just because it is
> > > > easy and quick to do, and cross-compiling certain packages can be a
> > > > real pain. But, a 400 MHz e300 core is not really fast for compiling,
> > > > so I have been considering buying some sort of PowerPC-based system
> > > > with a faster processor, just as a "build-server" (a G5 would do
> > > > wonders I guess).
> > > >
> > > > It seems like the only real option is one of the smaller IBM Power
> > > > servers, but that seems overkill to me. We also don't feel like
> > > > buying some old second-hand Apple gear.
> > > >
> > > > Is there any other available and affordable platform that can be used
> > > > to run linux and compile software natively for 32-bit PowerPC?
> > >
> > > Have a look at the YDL PowerStation:
> > >
> > > http://us.fixstars.com/products/powerstation/
> > >
> > > It is more or less a quad G5.
> >
> > This looks great! Thanks a lot for the tip.
> > I still have to figure out how to get one of these delivered to Europe,
> > but that shouldn't be such a big deal...
>
> Well, I got one recently here in Spain. Shipping charges are fairly
> large (it's not exactly a light and compact machine). But the current
> dollar exchange rate helps ;-)
>
> Now I have not yet found the way to install Debian on it
> (it refuses to boot Debian's CDROM), but I have not had
> time to investigate either.

If nothing else helps, try (manually) installing debootstrap from ubuntu 
sources and start from there with "debootstrap jaunty /mnt/partition" ;-)

Best regards,

-- 
David Jander
Protonic Holland.

Re: Best hardware platform for native compiling...

[Olof Johansson]

On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 10:47:39PM +1000, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-07-21 at 14:00 +0200, Gabriel Paubert wrote:
> > Well, I got one recently here in Spain. Shipping charges are fairly 
> > large (it's not exactly a light and compact machine). But the current 
> > dollar exchange rate helps ;-)
> > 
> > Now I have not yet found the way to install Debian on it
> > (it refuses to boot Debian's CDROM), but I have not had
> > time to investigate either.
> 
> It uses SLOF which should be capable of decent netbooting, so it should
> be possible to either netboot yaboot and have it load the kernel and
> initramfs, or maybe make a zImage with both included and netboot that.

Placing the debian (netinst) installer ramdisk and kernel on the /boot
partition and booting it from there should work too (after adding it to
the yaboot config).


-Olof