AMD Alchemy AU1100 or AU1500

its1louder · Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 2:03 am Post subject: AMD Alchemy AU1100 or AU1500

Anyone tried to cross compile to this platform? I know that they are mips32 based.

http://dev.gentoo.org/~vapier/CROSS-COMPILE-HOWTO sez:

Redhatter · Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 2:36 am Post subject:

Little or big endian? And which Userland:

For GNU LibC:
Little Endian: CHOST=mipsel-unknown-linux-gnu.
Big Endian: CHOST=mips-unknown-linux-gnu.

For µClibc:
Little Endian: CHOST=mipsel-unknown-linux-uclibc
Big Endian: CHOST=mips-unknown-linux-uclibc

Unfortunately, the Cobalt stages I recently put up on the web are no good to you... they are MIPS4, and will cause all sorts of "illegal instruction" error messages on your MIPS32 machine.

Your best bet would be to use a µClibc-based MIPS[el]1 stage, and build up from there. These can be found on the mirrors under gentoo/experimental/mips/embedded/stages.

This is just for the userland. For the kernel, you'll need to emerge crossdev (v0.9 or later) and make a cross compiller with it. The following should work:

Little Endian: crossdev -t mipsel-unknown-linux-uclibc
Big Endian: crossdev -t mips-unknown-linux-uclibc

Of course, if you want glibc... s/uclibc/glibc/. :-)

I'd suggest looking around on the Linux/MIPS Website for hints there. ;-)

If in doubt... pop into #gentoo-mipss, and we'll see if we can help.
_________________
Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...

Gentoo/MIPS Cobalt developer, Mozilla herd member.

its1louder · Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 5:06 am Post subject:

So you think it could be possible? Another group at my work has these instrument platforms based on the AU1100/AU1500 SoC's and they use a buggy custom RTOS to run it with very little functionality. I made an idle boast that I could build a linux kernel/toolchain on it that would be way more useful and less buggy - leveraging the GNU software yadda yadda. OK its not a RTOS but it is detirministic enough and the ease of development would be great if you could get to the stable kernel/toolchain part.

It's likely I'll get a spare system board and a charge number to work on it a few hours. So ok - I am a rank amatuer on embedded stuff, but I can RTFM my way out it as long as its doable and thats what I'm trying to feel out. It seems like you think it is. Just looked at uclibc and busybox - It looks like it could work. What do you think of 2.6 vs 2.4 kernels?
_________________
These go to eleven.

Redhatter · Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 6:53 am Post subject:

Heh... not VxWorks per chance? A couple of us are having all sorts of fun weening Xterminal's off it. ;-)

It even menions here that the machines run Linux... it's just a matter of building a kernel.

On the Linux/MIPS mailing list archives, there's a few hints too:
http://www.linux-mips.org/cgi-bin/namazu.cgi?query=AU1100&submit=Search%21&idxname=linux-mips&max=20&result=normal&sort=score

The information I've seen appears to suggest only Kernel 2.4 is supported... but Linux 2.6 support is in the works... and although old, Linux 2.4 is still a solid platform.
Not to mention, once support is available, it's trivial to upgrade. ;-)

Your best avenues for getting these puppies going, would be to have a look on the Linux/MIPS mailing list for clues... there are people there doing exactly what you're planning to do. ;-)

_________________
Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...

Gentoo/MIPS Cobalt developer, Mozilla herd member.