On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 05:34:42PM +0800, Aron Xu wrote:
On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 5:29 PM, Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> wrote:
On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 4:51 PM, Peter Palfrader wrote:
If our existing eight-year old hardware is the only mips machines we can
reasonably get then that doesn't bode well for mips. We don't think
relying on the SWARMs (alone) is an option.
Perhaps Cavium will interested in providing newer hardware now that
there is a MIPS N64 GSoC project underway. They offered some decent
hardware last year in association with such a port:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-mips/2012/02/msg00001.html
http://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2013/Projects#MIPS_N32.2FN64_ABI_port
http://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2013/StudentApplications/EleanorChen
I believe Cavium's David Daney is on debian-mips, we can talk to him
to see if there is any possibility of making donation.
It would be wonderful to refresh our mips environment as our current mips
environment is not healthy. We gladly accept hardware donations but would
appreciate if the donated hardware be equivalent to that available
commercially. Of the four existing donated boxen that we operate at ubcece,
one has never worked (fatally defective) and two are very unreliable. We also
had to modify them to boot on power-up.
Do the Cavium machines have any remote management features (similar to Sun
ALOM, HP iLO, Dell DRAC) that allow access to a serial console and to power
management? Alternatively, can they be configured to power on after a power
loss so we can attach them to a remotely controlled power distribution unit?
Do they boot from local storage?
Any help you can provide in securing newer mips equipment is appreciated. We
MUST refresh our mips environment if we wish to continue offering a mips port.
As mentioned, we will need a number of machines to satisfy the various
requirements (geographically distributed buildd machines, accessible porter
machine(s), etc.).
As for the GSoC project, the student seems to not get access to the
hardware Cavium offered, nor the main mentor (Cc'ed), so there is no
feedback about stability/other stuff about those hardware.
Why were the GSoC students unable to obtain access to the hardware?