Re: What would make musl 1.2?

[Isaac Dunham <ibid.ag@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 10:23:53AM +0000, Justin Cormack wrote:
> On 14 February 2015 at 00:06, Isaac Dunham <ibid.ag@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 11:09:55AM +0000, Justin Cormack wrote:
> >> mips n64 - there is a bit of cheap hardware around (Cavium stuff), but
> >> fairly niche at present, although recent Android supports it and
> >> Imagination seems to be promoting it more. Maybe they could be
> >> persuaded to sponsor mips ports?
> >
> > They came out with a new MIPS64 processor design recently (no hardware
> > is available yet), and the latest version of Android features MIPS64
> > support. IIRC, Alexandru Voica commented that it usually takes a little
> > under 2 years from design release to hardware on the market.
> >
> > I'd like to use musl on mips64, though I'm just a hobbyist and I've
> > not yet found the cheap hardware to which you refer.
> 
> The cheap hardware easily available is:
> Edgerouter lite http://www.ubnt.com/edgemax/edgerouter-lite/
> (note the full ethernet performance requires binary blobs, and the USB
> is fussy about what storage it will accept, so it is a bit annoying).
> they make higher end hardware too.

Thanks! I suppose that it's probably not really viable to hook up a
powered USB hub and some...other hardware.

> All the Chinese mips chips (Loongson) are 64 bit. I dont recommend the
> old 2F models (really odd instruction set) but the Loongson 3 ones
> sound better. Apparently you can get them as systems/boards from China
> for not too much and the newer ones are decent specs. I havent yet
> tried this yet but may do. See the loongson-dev list for details eg
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/loongson-dev/loongson-3a$20mainboard/loongson-dev/twzd5TBz_1k/fZnJs5Xf_6QJ

Ah yes.
Loongson 2F is the one that had some bug where one instruction could cause
random segfaults (use -mfix-loongson-2f-nop to avoid it - I suppose this
should be in the flags for mips64el).
Even the new ones are far from competing with a new high-end PC, but they look
to be in a similar league with my Thinkpad X100e in performance
(though some have far more cores).
They actually use the same southbridge and integrated graphics.


> I am hoping that now Imagination have realised that devs need hardware
> there will be a 64 bit dev board in the next year or so, especially as
> there was huge demand for the 32 bit one
> http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr/mips-creator-ci20-development-board-now-available
> - mine just arrived a couple of days ago.

Neat! There's been a bit of interest expressed in a 64-bit board, but
the comment I referred to seemed to imply it might be a little over a
year to get a Warrior-based 64-bit system out.

Thanks,
Isaac Dunham