Pandora

[Chuck Robey]

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M. Warner Losh wrote:
> 
>> Right now, such tools exist in the tree. :-)  Well, as long as you
>> don't use the new features in ARMv6...
> 
> Am I right on this?  I'm willling to start from scratch on this, the
> first binutils and gcc I've compiled is binutils-2.19 and gcc-4.3.1.
> I've come to the decision that the version of gcc I chose was
> probably wrong, I should have chosen 4.3.3 instead.  I used the
> software description of arm-linux-gnueabi.  If that is the triplet
> you'll agree on, then I'm going to rebuild it.  If I don't have any
> other big problems with it, I'm going to see if I can get permission
> to put web pages up on freebsd.org, so we can have central agreement
> on the software definition, and the versions of the tools we should
> rely on.  Do you think I ought to post of a copy of my tools, or
> expect everyone to build their own?
> 
>> Why not make this a port?  All the other cross build tools are ports.
>> *linux* anything likely is the wrong triple because we're freebsd.
>> There's likely to be a bunch of little things that are different.
>> There may even be most of the port already done.

I haven't approached this before, so I need to ease into this idea.  My initial
reaction is that our goal would be the src tree, then I realized that we would
need a cross-tools set which would build on our current system.  We *could* do
this as a port, but could you explain to me why it would be a good thing to have
it in a port instead of in the src tree?

>> Some minor tooling refinement on the kernel build side would help
>> too.  I have some hacks in this area.  Let me see if I can find some
>> time to toss them together.

I was going to ask to see them, then I realized we need to make this stuff
public, even if you're not sure yet, because we need to have things available to
everyone.

I see the freebsd-wiki.  I hadn't gone there before, but it looks like the Arm
platform section is good enough for me.  I said a stupid thing last time, in
noting that the triplet I'd speified to build my crosscompiler was
arm-linux-gnueabi.  Obviously, we could use FreeBSD in there somewhere.
Defining my build I used i386-unknown-freebsd8.0, so would we want to specify
something like arm-unknown-freebsd?  As far as this goes, I personally would be
wanting to port freebsd onto my new platform, the Pandora.  It's quite quite
similar to BeagleBoard.  The BeagleBoard seems to me to be more generic, where
the Pandora has a native internal keyboard and lcd screen, the BeagleBoard
merely has interfaces.  The BeagleBoard would, I think, be a pretty good vanilla
target for an Arm OMAP platform, because it has only those interfaces which are
available directly from the OMAP3530, nothing extra added.  This allows a pretty
rich list of interfaces because there's much available on the OMAP3530, and it
wouldn't be terribly difficult to add specifics to a BeagleBoard port to have it
become some other OMAP3530-based thing, like a Pandora.

According to what I read on the wiki, nothing is contemplated for the OMAP3530.
 That's the only one I'm going to have at all.  Could we consider adding this,
maybe calling is the ARMv7A ?  Along with definite differences in the
instruction set (means, a different set of binutils), it would also mean a
differing approach to the floating point.  I *think* that the ARM6 uses softfp
right?  ARMv7A uses hardware FP.  It could be done, probably without too much
blood, but it'd be different enough so that one tool might not be able to cover
both architectures.  What's your thought on this?

> 
> I'm going after permission to create a web page.  I have no web
> tools here, and damn near zero experience doing web pages.  I'll
> volunteer to do it, but if anyone else wants to volunteer the work,
> you'd probably end up with a better job being done.  Until someone
> else volunteers, I'll assume you want me to do it (however badly)
> but the first person who tells me how bad I'm doing it, I'm going to
> assume that person wants to volunteer themselves (I'll allow
> friendly criticism, because I really am lousy at web stuff, and
> could use a few helpful hints).
> 
>> Is there some reason that the FreeBSD wiki wouldn't serve your needs?

I've never bothered to learn to use a wiki, but I guess I will drag myself there.

> 
> OK, waiting for comments how (I have more questions, but I'm waiting).
> 
>> Bring it...

I oughta save that so I can warn you, later on, that YOU asked for it ...
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