resurrecting the mvme5100 ppc platform

resurrecting the mvme5100 ppc platform

[Paride Legovini]

Hello,
I'm just started working on some mvme5100 boards, and so I discovered
that support for these cards has been dropped with linux-2.6.27 due to
lack of interest. Here is the relevent post on linuxppc-embedded:

http://www.mail-archive.com/linuxppc-embedded@ozlabs.org/msg30049.html

Well, I'd really like to see support for the mvme5100 to be reintegrated
in the kernel. I'm willing to help on this, but at the moment I don't
know how much work is to be done, as I don't know how the switch from
ppc to powerpc changed things.
If anybody of you is interested please drop me an email.

Thank you,
Paride

Re: resurrecting the mvme5100 ppc platform

[Gabriel Paubert]

On Thu, Feb 04, 2010 at 01:39:35PM +0000, Paride Legovini wrote:
> Hello,
> I'm just started working on some mvme5100 boards, and so I discovered
> that support for these cards has been dropped with linux-2.6.27 due to
> lack of interest. Here is the relevent post on linuxppc-embedded:
> 
> http://www.mail-archive.com/linuxppc-embedded@ozlabs.org/msg30049.html
> 
> Well, I'd really like to see support for the mvme5100 to be reintegrated
> in the kernel. I'm willing to help on this, but at the moment I don't
> know how much work is to be done, as I don't know how the switch from
> ppc to powerpc changed things.

A lot, these are PreP platforms. I'm using several MVME24xx/26xx/27xx
here (some have been running continously over a decade). They have 
a lot of similarities with MVME5100 if I remember correctly. 

I don't have time right now (especially if I am alone) to write 
support for them, but I am interested in running a more recent
kernel, provided it's not too bloated (some machines only have
16MB of RAM).

	Regards,
	Gabriel

Re: resurrecting the mvme5100 ppc platform

[Paride Legovini]

On Mon, Feb 08, 2010 at 12:21:16PM +0100, Gabriel Paubert wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 04, 2010 at 01:39:35PM +0000, Paride Legovini wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I'm just started working on some mvme5100 boards, and so I discovered
> > that support for these cards has been dropped with linux-2.6.27 due to
> > lack of interest. Here is the relevent post on linuxppc-embedded:
> > 
> > http://www.mail-archive.com/linuxppc-embedded@ozlabs.org/msg30049.html
> > 
> > Well, I'd really like to see support for the mvme5100 to be reintegrated
> > in the kernel. I'm willing to help on this, but at the moment I don't
> > know how much work is to be done, as I don't know how the switch from
> > ppc to powerpc changed things.
> 
> A lot, these are PreP platforms. I'm using several MVME24xx/26xx/27xx
> here (some have been running continously over a decade). They have 
> a lot of similarities with MVME5100 if I remember correctly. 
> 
> I don't have time right now (especially if I am alone) to write 
> support for them, but I am interested in running a more recent
> kernel, provided it's not too bloated (some machines only have
> 16MB of RAM).

This is quite discouraging, I think I'll just keep using linux-2.6.26.8,
the last kernel supporting the mvme5100 (afaik). I'd like to work on
a patch for newer kernels, but I have to finish a project in a
reasonable time, so unfortunately I can't start studying these kernel
internals now. Anyway, if you'll feel like working on it tell me, I'll
be happy to help.

Paride