Re: Linux on Motorola Sandpoint/PPMC7400

Hi, Mark!

On Mon, Aug 28, 2000 at 04:14:32PM -0700, you wrote the following:

quoted

I've seen that Hard Hat Linux supports the Sandpoint board with
MPC8240 and MPC755. We have a 7400 processor there though. Does anyone
have any experience with this configuration? Can Linux run on it?

Also, is there anything special I should know about booting Linux from
dink32? Here's what I did, and how it failed. I got the latest kernel
snapshot from fsmlabs (I tried the same with both the latest 2.2 and
2.3 trees).

If you want to use Hard Hat Linux on the Sandpoint, you need to get it from
Monta Vista's CDK 1.2.  The LSP (Linux Support Package) you're looking for is
sp8240 (for Sanpoint 8240--also works with a 755/107 combo).  You can find it
online at ftp://ftp.mvista.com/pub/CDK/1.2/cd/PowerPC/ppc_82xx/RPMS/

I downloaded the kernel and tried it. It starts booting, but it hangs
right after initializing the the OpenPIC. :-( I'll download the source
code tonight and try to look at it, although I don't have much hopes
-- I've never done kernel hacking at that level. At some point you
gotta learn though.

Is there any book that you recommend to get me started? Any other
docs/tips?

I haven't tested with a 7400 but it should be fairly close if it doesn't work
right out of the box.  That is, work without altivec.  I don't know what's
involved to use the altivec support in Linux.

In most kernels I've seen (fsmlabs', and I think yours too) there was
a CONFIG_ALTIVEC option. What does it do?


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Alex Shnitman                            | http://www.debian.org
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I downloaded the kernel and tried it. It starts booting, but it hangs

right after initializing the the OpenPIC. :-( I'll download the source
code tonight and try to look at it, although I don't have much hopes
-- I've never done kernel hacking at that level. At some point you
gotta learn though.

Is there any book that you recommend to get me started? Any other
docs/tips?

Oops, I should have included the sandpoint switch settings.  For this version of
the kernel, the sandpoint switches must be set as follows:

S4,S3: up, down
S5: down
S6: down (yours is probably up which is why it hung in openpic)

Try this and see if it helps.

Mark


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Is there any book that you recommend to get me started? Any other
docs/tips?

_I_ don't know of any books that will help much for board ports.  That doesn't
mean there aren't any...

quoted

I haven't tested with a 7400 but it should be fairly close if it doesn't work
right out of the box.  That is, work without altivec.  I don't know what's
involved to use the altivec support in Linux.

In most kernels I've seen (fsmlabs', and I think yours too) there was
a CONFIG_ALTIVEC option. What does it do?

I haven't looked at the altivec support in linux.  Unless someone asnwers this for
you, you'll have to dig into the kernel/driver code yourself to figure it out.

Did the switch settings help?

Mark


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