On 4/10/07, anon trol <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I'm not sure where to ask this; so, I thought I'd start here in "misc"
first.
I think I have convinced myself that I want to sponsor an architecture port
effort. Specifically, I would like to see OpenBSD ported to the Routerboard
532 (IDT MIPS32 4Kc processor). After STFW, I see that a few other people
have posted questions about this in the past without a lot of positive
response (it seems that there might have been a port that would have been
suitable at one point in time, but is no longer part of the current
distribution). I'm curious what the non-technical (finical) stewardship
requirements might be for bringing back a dropped architecture and making
sure that it works on a very specific set of target boards (starting with
the 532).
I don't think this is too much of a technical undertaking (but at the moment
it's beyond my ability and time constraints)... the routerboard 532 boots
off of compaq flash (no need to muck about with the on-board flash). The
only things that worry me are the slim resources (64MB of memory max) and
support for the first NIC (IDT Korina 10/100 Mbit/s Fast Ethernet port). I
would be willing to forgo support for the IDT NIC just to get things started
quickly (the other NICs are VIA VT6105). I would want support for at least
one commodity 802.11(series) wireless NIC in both the 2.4ghz and 5ghz
ranges. Other potential issue include the funky bootstrap code (which looks
for ELF), custom BIOS and MIPS endedness.
I don't want this to be a goatrope where I send off a bunch a Routerboard
hardware and nobody even tries to collect the bounty, but I know the OpenBSD
project has a pretty good reputation for getting things done when equipment
and funds are provided (if I'm off mark with that semi-acquired assumption,
please someone fill me in off-line).
Where do I start and who do I need to talk to?
I have been interested in this before and I'm thinkin of ordering a
routerboard just because I need a new router.
This task is rather big though. Sure one could start with the
evmips-port from NetBSD (there was a mail about supporting MIPS 4kc
would probobly only be to add some strings for it) but it still needs
to be ported to OpenBSD which is probobly a rather big task.
The 32mb RAM (Routerboard 532 has 32 mb RAM and Routerboard 532A has
64 MB) is not a problem, I have run OpenBSD on x86 with 16mb RAM
without problems.
The problem I see is to get it to boot of good, and to port the flash.
When those two task are done the rest of the drivers will probobly not
be that much of a problem. I think there is a Realtek ethernet on it
which is already supported by OpenBSD.
This is for sure an interesting board and there are turning up more
and more MIPS based router that would be great to be able to run
OpenBSD at.
Is there anybody already working on this?
BR
dunceor
