Re: Question on porting Linux...

[Jun Sun <jsun@mvista.com>]

Shuanglin Wang wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm working on porting Linux to a third-part board. I don't know where to 
> start.
> Can anyone give me some tips?
> By the way, the board doesn't have PCI bus, Interrupt controller, and RTC.  Do
> you think it is possible to port Linux to it?  And how difficult will it be?
> 
> A lot of thanks,
> 

Porting Linux/MIPS generally involves three tasks:

1. CPU support

If your CPU is already supported, then your task is as easy as include the
CONFIG_CPU_XXXX in your config file.

2. board support

This involves several subtasks:

a) hook your board/machines to the system.  Check include/asm/bootinfo.h,
arch/mips/setup.c.

b) prom_init().

c) board setup code (xxx_setup()): fix hardware, set Linux variables, etc

d) interrupt dispatching, time service

e) others

Look under various arch/mips subdirectories.

3) driver code

Serial, ether, etc.

Good luck.

Jun