Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 11:12:17 -0700
From: wje@fir.esd.sgi.com (William J. Earl)
There is no way the kernel could work on an R4000 or R4400
without changes to the cache routines, as well as the addition of
certain workarounds for processor errata. Stick to R4600 and R5000
processors for the time being. I asked David to start with the
R4600, because the workarounds for the errata are far simpler, and
because it and the R5000 are the volume processors for Indy. It
will not be all that hard to add R4000 and R4400 support, but there
are several messy workarounds to implement, so it is more
interesting to get a complete system working on an R4600 or R5000.
Heh, I go the the UK and people are trying my kernel out all over the
place. This is good.
I will work on the issues necessary for R4[40]00 processor support
certainly. Take note that I worked to get a shell prompt on my target
machine "by all means necessary" as quickly as possible so that I
could have an early proof of concept to show everyone. With this
there are some hard coded items in the tree that need to be attended
to, but I should be able to get it all to work. One notable thing is
that machines not equipped with NEWPORT graphics cards, and instead
possess an INDY with the older EXPRESS graphics card, will not be able
to get things working until I get the serial console up or I write a
driver for the EXPRESS. Both will happen in due time.
As you can see I am back from the UK, and will try to get back on
track this weekend.
Later,
David S. Miller
dm@sgi.com
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