FreeBSD on a TI TMS470 controller board

[Olivier Houchard]

On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 01:51:21PM +0100, Karsten Brandt wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> 
> I've read that FreeBSD support the ARM architecture. 
> 
> I use FreeBSD also on i386 plattforms and I very happy with this OS.
> Therefore I want try to port FreeBSD-ARM to the TMS470 controller.
> This controller is based on an ARM7-Core. So that I believe it should work 
> with some adjustments.
> 
> My question is: 
> 
> Which sourcecode from FreeBSD kernel is required?
> The latest i386 code with patches?
> 
> Is this wrong, where can I get this code?
> 
> What are the rigth steps for porting this controller?
> 
> For example:
> In the case that I've a running development environment, what the next 
> step?
> 
> Adjust register and memory assigments in the header?
> 
> I hope, everybody else can help me to start this project.
> 

Hi Karsten,

The sourcecode for ARM is provided with the i386 version. A few patches are
needed right now, to get gcc/binutils support. You can find the steps needed
to compile a cross-compiler here :
http://people.FreeBSD.org/~cognet/freebsd_arm.txt

ARM7TDMI generic support should be there, however to support your particular
CPU, we need :
- a few bits for very early bootstrap, to setup the kernel pagetables.
- a lot of drivers, as there're generally different from CPU to CPU. Once you
get a working UART driver, things generally get easier.

Cheers,

Olivier