gentoo

Hi All,

Just to let you know, things haven’t been totally silent over here… Lately, I’ve been messing about with a mips64el tarball I got from Joel Martin. This is a full multilib environment (o32/n32/n64), which was cross-compiled from x86 via some build scripts based around portage and crossdev. There was however, a snag … there were artifacts of cross-compilation lurking about, some i386 binaries (cc1, cpp1 and tbz2tool being a few), and some even more bizzare “n32 MIPS32” binaries (which I’d have normally considered impossible).

This afternoon, after some tinkering with crossdev, I discovered I was able to get gcc-4.1.0 to build enough to patch up the broken files, to the point I was able to build packages like rsync (although it failed to package due to tbz2tool being broken). I’ve since managed to rebuild things like libtool, and have Python 2.4 well underway as I type this post.

What does this mean? Well, in the distant future (probably in the next few months following my end-of-semester exams), there’s the possibility of providing n32 and n64 (i.e. 64-bit) stages for Cobalt hardware. These will probably be as broken as their big endian counterparts (probably more so), and won’t be officially supported by the MIPS team, but are provided for those who know what they are doing. Those who want stable stages, just stick with the 32-bit (o32) ones we officially support. 🙂

It’ll be a while before I make 64-bit netboot images available… it won’t be anytime soon… if people want a 64-bit userland, it’s best at this point to use it in a chroot environment (as I am doing now), using it for a root environment could lead to all sorts of avoidable headaches.

Also in the plans, as soon as I have the time to do so, I’ll look at a LiveCD for netbooting Cobalt servers. This will be a minimalist x86 LiveCD, which when booted, turns a standard x86 desktop into a BOOTP/NFS server required for booting Cobalt hardware. Initially this will be exclusively for MIPS-based Cobalt servers, but may later be extended to x86-based Cobalt hardware, when suitable netboot images become available. SGI hardware is also a possibility that I may consider. At the moment, it’s little more than some thoughts in my head … I’ll keep you all posted on what happens here.

Anyways, I best get some sleep (1:19am right now), and get some university work done … I’ve got a very busy week ahead. 😐

The 2006.0 stage 3 has been pushed out to the mirrors. You can get it from
your local Gentoo
mirror in the
experimental/mips/stages/cobalt/2006.0 directory.

Not all mirrors have the files yet (they were only pushed out last night), but they should appear soon — probably in the next day or two. 🙂

As always… any bugs, issues… let me know. 🙂

Well, after my genius moment last night (forgot to stick the stage 3 tarball on my laptop to take to uni), I managed to upload the Cobalt stage 3 tarball for Gentoo/MIPS 2006.0.

Feedback would be appreciated, I’ve done some testing, and everything seems kosher, but more thorough tests would be appreciated before I go pushing them out to mirrors. They are presently available in the usual location, along side the 2005.1 stages.

Well, at long last it’s built… I’m currently doing some testing of the stage 3 tarball (I’ve already hit a problem with missing /dev entries, which has now been rectified).

Currently, I’m doing some build tests to check that everything is okay, once that is done I’ll release the tarball onto my devspace.

ETA: approximately 1 day, I’ll probably upload after 12:00PM local time (Brisbane Time; that’s 2:00AM GMT).

Hi All,
This is a short one … I’m now in the process of upgrading Catalyst on my Qube2, which shouldn’t take too long… After that, I’ll build a stage2 “seed” stage, then I’ll start the build in earnest.

Estimated time … assuming I have no hiccups … will be approximately one fortnight. The stages will be based on Chris’ 20060123 portage tree snapshot.

This release… I will be concentrating on the stage 3 tarballs. I might provide a stage 1/2 MIPS1 stages, so those with MIPS1, MIPS2 or MIPS32 Little-endian CPUs can build their own systems … although no support for these MIPS1 stages will not be provided.

I’ll keep you all up-to-date on what happens. 🙂
Regards,
Stuart Longland

Hi All…

For those of you who have any last-minute updates for the MIPS handbook, please speak up now. I have sent up patches so that the docs team have a head start on implementing the changes (particularly for any translations that may exist). I hope to have the shiny new handbook in place shortly.

The impatient ones may read it on my own server here.

Regards,
Stuart Longland

Hi All…

I have just started work at improving the netboot images for the Cobalt port. Here you’ll find my latest netboot images. What has changed, is that instead of distributing the raw kernel, these are now distributed as a tarball (uncompressed — bzipping them actually made them larger) complete with CoLo, default.colo startup script, and symbolic links for most MIPS-based Cobalt systems.

To use. On the server, download the .tar file (and optionally run it through gpg, sha1sum and md5sum to verify you downloaded it right). Then unpack it on your server by running: tar -C / -xvf nfsroot-...cobalt.tar.

Then, when booting the Cobalt server… hold down left & right arrow buttons. You should see “Net Booting” appear on the display, followed shortly after by a prompt asking if you want to enable the Console. “Console ON” should be already selected, just press ENTER here.

You’ll then be asked where to boot from. Scroll down two places, and you should see “Network Boot (NFS)”. Select it and press ENTER. You should see “Loading Gentoo/MIPS” on the LCD panel, and the serial console should display the bootup progress. You’ll finally arrive at the “Press ENTER to enable this console” prompt that you should all be familiar with.

If, however, you need kernel parameters for your machine (such as Cobalt 2700 users, who need to disable serial console and start telnet) — select the Boot Shell method, and boot in the traditional way. The kernel image is named kernel.gz.

I’ll be updating the Handbook shortly to reflect this. I have an open bug covering the revamp of documentation. My draft handbook is viewable in the usual place, and feedback is encouraged. A lot has changed in the Linux/MIPS world since the docs were last overhauled, and so I aim to bring the docs up-to-date.

I shall keep you all posted as the work progresses.

Yep, after 2 power failures, weeks of anticipation, and much hair pulling on my part (good thing though, I need a haircut anyways), the full set of stages is finally built and uploaded. You can find them on my devspace in the usual place.

These haven’t undergone much in the way of testing… so it would be greatly appreciated if some brave souls could give these a try and report back on how they go. All going well, we should be able to get these pushed out to mirrors by the end of the month. 🙂

I’ll also start knocking up some new netboot images shortly. The new images will differ from the old ones, in that you will no longer have to download and extract CoLo into /nfsroot. I’m planning to produce images which can just be untarred directly into /nfsroot, and contain all the necessary files for boot. It’d also be nice to rid ourselves with the past time of mucking with the shell. All going well here, I’ll be re-writing that section of the handbook, and things should become significantly more simpler.

But we’ll see — for now I’m breathing a sigh of relief, but soon I’ll be back into the slog that is end-of-semester exams, so I don’t have long just now. Likely, this will be a summer holiday project. (Yes, for those of you playing along in the Northern Hemisphere…temperatures are warming up down here in Brisbane.)

As always, I’ll keep you posted on further notices, and I’m usually online if people wish to contact me.
Regards,
Stuart Longland

Well, ain’t it lovely… I’m busy fixing a few things up in a local CVS repository…. I hit cvs commit, as you do… then all a sudden the lights go out, my screen goes blank, and I’m left in the dark — totally silent except two computer UPS’s screaming about the loss of power. As for my stage 3 tarball compilation on my Qube2 … up in smoke.

So I get up, and crash around in the dark looking for my torch so I can check the meter box (it hasn’t been unusual for the earth leakage to trip out without reason). No sooner do I get just 3 meters, the lights come back on. Okay, fine, it was late, so I just switched the rest of my computer off (namely the monitor, desklamp and tuner) and headded for bed. Then the power fails again. Lovely.

I found a torch and went looking at the meter box… Hrmm, not our end, and looking around, I see other people looking around in the darkness. Unfortunately in this case, the outage lasts longer than my UPS’s can supply power — so we go offline.

The power was restored at around 1:00AM, but unfortunately this means my compile for the Cobalt stages is now put back a whole couple of days, as the build must now start again. I’ve now pieced my network back together (namely a couple of IRC bots were offline, and my IPv6 tunnel was nonfunctional) and so I’m back online again.

Hopefully there won’t be any further interruptions, and this build can progress right to the end. 🙂