Re: Linux on a RS/6000 with PowerPC and MCA
Adam Fritzler said ...
> On Fri, 7 Apr 2000, Aaron Burt wrote:
> > > Speaking from the perspective of "IBM help". What'cha need? Perhaps I
> > > might be able to first find it and second get permission to send it your
> > > way.
> > Adam Fritzler appears to be the smart guy regarding the confluence of MCA
> > and PPC. Though he's pretty heavily loaded with Token-Ring issues, IIRC.
> I'm fairly loaded with graduating-high-school issues at this point :)
> > I suspect technical (HW- and register-level) docs for any PowerPC MCA
> > RS/6000 boxen would do it. But I don't know who should get it.
> There are lots of people with boxes. The key is to find the people with
> the knowledge, time, and the specific hardware for the docs.
> > Someone with time, C skills and the appropriate hardware COULD raise their
> > hand and describe their platform(s)...
> I'm raising. I currently have a 7011, but I have yet to get it to work.
> I'm suspecting hardware failure. Donations accepted :)
I've got a 7012 Model 360 (64Mb, 1Gb+320Mb HD) operational (AIX 3.2.5
installed). Unfortunately all it's got in the way of adapters in a
64-port Async adapter and of course the builtin ethernet and SCSI
controllers. It's essentially headless. I should be able to get an MCA
video card somewhere. But, I'm willing to use the machine for dev and/or
testing. I've also got Linux on a dual PII@400 Intel box with lots of
disk space and it's ethernet attached. I could create a cross-compile
environment for PPC. Hacking on the code will, or course, require
hardware doc for the 7012/POWER(2) arch (which I don't have)e.
> > It would seem like the best tack would be to go after the MCA PowerPC
> > boxen with an MCA port and a bootloader. Once that's working one could
> > then start playing with POWER's different MMU and instruction set.
> > Someone said that the PowerPC compiler can generate POWER code.
>
> Right. PPC MCA is going to be the first difficult step. We need docs on
> the boot process at this point. From there, we'll need docs on everything
> thats non-standard, including the MCA interface, etc. (The MCA part is
> probably one of the easiest problems to solve in an MCA PPC port -- its
> just the common difference between that group of machines and the rest of
> the PPCs.)
If I can get a copy of that doc, I can help out with the port.
> > And I counted about 5 people with boxes expressing serious interest
> > in running Linux.
Oh! Oh! Pick Me! Pick Me!-)
> I've cc'd this to the mailing list we set up a few months ago.
>
> I'd be happy to accept any docs IBM wants to give, as I'm sure anyone else
> would. What would be best would to have the docs in electronic format
> with a free distribution policy. Printed docs with the same policy would
> be adequate as well -- scanners are fairly prevelent these days.
>
> We'd love to have IBM assistance here!
Sure would!
> af
> ---
> Adam Fritzler
> { mid@auk.cx, afritz@iname.com}
--
Peter A. Castro (doctor@fruitbat.org) or (pcastro@us.oracle.com)
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