Date:	Tue, 17 Mar 1998 20:31:02 +0100
From:	ralf@uni-koblenz.de
To:	Alexander Kjeldaas <astor@guardian.no>
Subject: Re: Another "Linux SBC" proposal

On Tue, Mar 17, 1998 at 06:09:51PM +0100, Alexander Kjeldaas wrote:

> > No, not on the hardware -- but my objective is to save money on system
> > development, the largest component being software development.  Linux is
> > attractive only on the [3-6]86 today, because other ports aren't as utterly
> > tested.  Linux 2.0.33 on Intel chips is rock solid, and it's an extremely
> > inexpensive platform for me to code for.
> > 
> 
> I would consider MIPS because cobaltmicro is making a product based on
> that platform. That, and the fact that David Miller is working there
> _implies_ that the port is worth cosidering :-).

To put things right:

 o I did most of the MIPS stuff, both what is available in Linus sources and
   for Cobalt and debugged it.  2.0.30 on MIPS is just as solid as on Intel;
   2.1.x is far less stable because of the bugs in the _generic_ part of the
   kernel.  That's at least the case for PCish configurations - which I
   consider essentially everything but Indy and DECstations.
 o David continued my work with the intent to work mostly on speedups.
 o So far none of the feature or performance enhancements or the support for
   the Cobalt hardware have been merged back into Linus' sources.
 o The MIPS port is still lacking the required floating point support in the
   kernel.  So if an application is relying on proper IEEE754 semantics (few
   embedded apps do) then it is _not_ the architecture of choise.  That a bit
   a pitty because floating point performance is one of the points that
   make MIPS interesting.
   (This is a non-issue if one can guarantee that none of the cases that
   cause ``unimplemented'' exceptions will ever happen.  Highperformance
   software has to do anyway, or performance *will* suck on some RISC
   fpus like MIPS or Alpha.)
 o Who is interested should go for http://www.linux.sgi.com or
   ftp.linux.sgi.com.  While some people at SGI like to label the MIPS port
   SGI/Linux there isn't anything really SGI specific in it - the Indy
   (Indy support done '96 by David, btw.) is just yet another MIPS box.
   Keep that in mind while reading the web pages.
   There is another web server http://lena.fnet.fr rsp ftp.fnet.fr.  That
   server is a bit outdated because SGI's internet connection is way
   faster and I've got shell access on their server ...

  Ralf