I have updated my RaQ2 build for Linux from Scratch to most of the latest packages for the RaQ2. A question was raised by some other memebers of the Linux from Scratch group, that frankly I didn't have the answers for. I appreciate your feedback on these questions.
1 - Will the build method I have currently work with any MIPS processor based machine, with the exception of the bootloader?
The bulk of it would be largely the same -- however there would be a difference in that endianness, ABIs and ISAs have to be considered.
e.g. Cobalt Servers are Little Endian running RM523[01] CPUs (MIPS IV ISA). All (MIPS-based) SGI machines are Big Endian, mainly with either MIPS III or MIPS IV class CPUs.
Therefore you use mips-unknown-linux-gnu as the HOST on SGI boxes, and mipsel-unknown-linux-gnu on Cobalts. (Some even use mips64-unknown-linux-gnu)
> 2 - Is there a bootloader for MIPS that will work on every machine, or
is different for every MIPS based machine's firmware? If so any examples out there how to implement?
Okay, a lot of MIPS machines implement the ARCs firmware, but still there's a big variety of machines there -- so making one bootloader support them all would be an outright nightmare. Having said that, there are several bootloaders that do get used across multiple machines. Some that come to mind:
- CoLo (the Cobalt Loader) for Cobalt servers - ARCBoot for SGI machines - U-Boot - YAMON
and there are likely many more. They've all got their own differences -- just to give you an idea, have a look at my copy of the Gentoo/MIPS handbook[2] -- specifically the bootloader section[3]. This version covers setting up both Cobalt servers and SGI machines with Gentoo Linux. As you can see, there's a big difference between the machines.
Anyway, I hope that's answered some of your questions. :-) -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Stuart Longland -oOo- http://stuartl.longlandclan.hopto.org | | Atomic Linux Project -oOo- http://atomicl.berlios.de | | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | | I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ Footnotes: 1. Note that the IP12 and it's R4k cousin, the IP20 are currently unsupported in Linux at this time -- although people are working on that :-) 2. Got the clipboard applet ready? This is a long one: <http://www.longlandclan.hopto.org/~stuartl/gentoo/docs/index.php/gentoo-doc/en/handbook/handbook-mips.xml> 3. Configuring the Bootloader: <http://www.longlandclan.hopto.org/~stuartl/gentoo/docs/index.php/gentoo-doc/en/handbook/handbook-mips.xml?part=1&chap=10> ... and yes, eventually this will be put on the main Gentoo site... pending bug #81072: <http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=81072>
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