[9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[erik quanstrom]

as it turns out there are a lot of crazy little bugs in the system
due to running for so long on 32-bit machines.  i'm sure that
we're in a similar situation with endianness, but perhaps even
worse.

to keep everybody honest, i'd like to dig up some sort of plausable
big-endian machine.  since the point here is to swat bugs, not
write a new kernel, i would be especially nice if a kernel already
existed.  another big bonus would be hardware that still exists and
doesn't require a soldering iron to keep running.  :-)

- erik

Re: [9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[Charles Forsyth]

I'd be surprised if there are too many endian problems, because
everything I tried ran happily on PowerPC
which is usually big-endian.

On 13 January 2013 17:08, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>  i'm sure that
> we're in a similar situation with endianness, but perhaps even
> worse.

Re: [9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[erik quanstrom]

On Sun Jan 13 12:29:57 EST 2013, charles.forsyth@gmail.com wrote:
> I'd be surprised if there are too many endian problems, because
> everything I tried ran happily on PowerPC
> which is usually big-endian.

are you speaking of the distribution, or of plan 9 code in general?
i was speaking of plan 9 code in general.

- erik

Re: [9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

> to keep everybody honest, i'd like to dig up some sort of plausable
> big-endian machine.  since the point here is to swat bugs, not
> write a new kernel, i would be especially nice if a kernel already
> existed.  another big bonus would be hardware that still exists and
> doesn't require a soldering iron to keep running.  :-)

You can pick up Sun V100 1U servers on eBay for under $100.  They're
getting a bit old these days, but would make a good fit for trying to
bring up the Sparc64 kernel.  No on-board video to worry about, fairly
generic Ethernet chips (Intel or Realtek or something similar), IDE(!)
disk controllers.  They are reasonably quiet, and the ones I had never drew
more than 45W (two drive configuration).  They also have enough LOM
support on tty0 to let you remotely push the power and reset buttons.

Charles, what sort of PPC hardware were you running on?

--lyndon

Re: [9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[Charles Forsyth]

The distribution, I suppose, or something like it, and code we wrote.
I don't know of any publicly-available big-endian machines to test new things.

On 13 January 2013 17:45, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> are you speaking of the distribution, or of plan 9 code in general?
> i was speaking of plan 9 code in general.

Re: [9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[Charles Forsyth]

Blue Gene

On 13 January 2013 18:00, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ca> wrote:
> Charles, what sort of PPC hardware were you running on?

Re: [9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[erik quanstrom]

On Sun Jan 13 13:45:52 EST 2013, charles.forsyth@gmail.com wrote:
> Blue Gene
>

hard to fit in the basement.

- erik

Re: [9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[John Floren]

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 10:48 AM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> On Sun Jan 13 13:45:52 EST 2013, charles.forsyth@gmail.com wrote:
>> Blue Gene
>>
>
> hard to fit in the basement.
>
> - erik
>

I don't know about the /Q's A2 processors, but you could at one point
buy PPC440 development boards, which were very handy.

Re: [9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[Richard Miller]

>> Blue Gene
>>
>
> hard to fit in the basement.

How about an ipengine (mpc823)?  I've got one gathering dust here.

Re: [9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[John Floren]

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 11:06 AM, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
>>> Blue Gene
>>>
>>
>> hard to fit in the basement.
>
> How about an ipengine (mpc823)?  I've got one gathering dust here.
>
>

I caution against working on any hardware which can no longer be
purchased new (sparc32, alpha), it's just pouring time/money down a
hole. Sparc64 appears to still be available, although only as
expensive server hardware?


john

Re: [9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[David Arnold]

On 13/01/2013, at 2:21 PM, John Floren wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 11:06 AM, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
>>>> Blue Gene
>>> 
>>> hard to fit in the basement.
>> 
>> How about an ipengine (mpc823)?  I've got one gathering dust here.
> 
> I caution against working on any hardware which can no longer be
> purchased new (sparc32, alpha), it's just pouring time/money down a
> hole. Sparc64 appears to still be available, although only as
> expensive server hardware?

Cavium Octeon?  MIPS64, actively available, but probably not that cheap.
Likely get a PPC64 board cheaper.



d

Re: [9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[erik quanstrom]

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 11:06 AM, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
>>> Blue Gene
>>>
>>
>> hard to fit in the basement.
>
> How about an ipengine (mpc823)?  I've got one gathering dust here.

if there's a kernel for it, and i could find, it would be great.

> I caution against working on any hardware which can no longer be
> purchased new (sparc32, alpha), it's just pouring time/money down a
> hole. Sparc64 appears to still be available, although only as
> expensive server hardware?

certainly this is true if your goal is to work on the platform, but my
goal has nothing to do with the platform, and everything to do with
checking that there are not unwarrented endian assumptions.

- erik

Re: [9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[Richard Miller]

> if there's a kernel for it, and i could find, it would be great.

I have a kernel, which I haven't booted for 3 years but should
be ok.

You can't buy them new but we can probably come to some
arrangement since I'm not using mine.  I got it because it's
got an fpga in it, but never managed to get the cpu to talk
to it.

Re: [9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[Bakul Shah]

On Sun, 13 Jan 2013 11:21:40 PST John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 11:06 AM, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
> >>> Blue Gene
> >>>
> >>
> >> hard to fit in the basement.
> >
> > How about an ipengine (mpc823)?  I've got one gathering dust here.
> >
> >
>
> I caution against working on any hardware which can no longer be
> purchased new (sparc32, alpha), it's just pouring time/money down a
> hole. Sparc64 appears to still be available, although only as
> expensive server hardware?

Ingenic jz4770 (MIPS based SOC) tablets might be worth
checking out.  The last time I looked its documentation was
rather sketchy but there does seem to be a linux port.

http://en.ingenic.cn/product.aspx?ID=78

ftp://ftp.ingenic.cn/3sw/01linux/ (very slow)
http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IngenicJz47xx (mirrors some of the above)
More links here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenic_Semiconductor

Re: [9fans] big endian plan 9 machine?

[Bakul Shah]

On Mon, 14 Jan 2013 08:16:13 GMT Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
> You can't buy them new but we can probably come to some
> arrangement since I'm not using mine.  I got it because it's
> got an fpga in it, but never managed to get the cpu to talk
> to it.

Speaking of fpgas, the Zynq 7000 series looks interesting.
There are Linux and FreeBSD ports to the zedboard (dev board
for zynq7000) and at least linux can talk to its integrated
fpga. Too many toys, not enough time to play with them!

http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/zynq-7000.htm