[openbeos] Re: openbeos Digest V8 #114

> > > From what I've done on m68k I'd say it's not too hard as long as 
> > > you
> > > target arm with mmu. mmu-less ones aren't worth it.
> > 
> > Intriguing...

ARM920T for ex has one, 940 doesn't.
While it's possible to support mmu-less versions, in practice it'll be 
much work for not much gained.
Linux doesn't run on those (only uCLinux), and I don't think WinCE 
does.

Most user-interactive devices have one with an mmu anyway.

> > FYI: I know this area is interesting to ARM because I happen to 
> > work for 
> > them.  Having followed Haiku from the beginning and being a BeOS 
> > user 
> > before that it struck me that it's an ideal OS for such devices, 
> > more so 
> > than the likes of Linux.
> 
> Concerning the "potential", maybe you're right. But I am afraid it 
> will 
> take more than just the port to the architecture, although that's a 
> good 
> start. ;-)

As was said, window manager, input methods, ... and layout will also be 
optimized.

> > My opinion on the focus shift was that yes, it was a bad move but 
> > they 
> > really had no other choice.
> > At the time Be couldn't even *give* BeOS to PC vendors so they 
> > jumped on 
> > a potential market which never played out.
> 
> The worst thing about it is that they managed to convince quite a few 
> bigger application vendors to devote resources into ports and shortly 
> before those where ready, here comes the Focus Shift. From what I 
> understand, it wasn't just Nuendo.

That and the reduced number of players doesn't make it easy for them to 
trust newcomers I suppose...

> > Anyway, I'm half considering doing the ARM port myself... I'll need 
> > to 
> > start reading up on the Haiku kernel, anyone got any pointers where 
> > I 
> > should start?
> 
> Now *that's* the spirit! :-) I don't know if there is much material 
> about 
> the subject although some material may be at <www.haiku-os.org/documents>. 
> > The code should hopefully be well structured and there are some 
> people 
> around with porting knowledge: Francois Revol is working on the M68K 
> port 
> right now (mmu_man in #haiku), Ingo Weinhold had worked on the PPC 
> port at 
> a time, Axel Dörfler of course and Travis (gheist), who wrote the 
> NewOS 
> kernel, is also pretty helpful and usually around in #haiku. The best 
> approach may be to eventually get network booting going for short 
> turn 
> around times, if your device supports it. Axel and Ingo can probably 
> help 
> you best with that.

Ithamar is also interested in the port, he has many devices at work :)

I've looked into it, and I think the simplest option is to use a 2-
stage boot:
- have uboot ported to the platform (should be available already), with 
added BFS support
- have initialize the hw and load zbeos, so zbeos doesn't have to 
handle the myriad of hw combination, and can use uboot as a king of 
BIOS
- then zbeos loads the kernel after initializing it mmu and other 
stuff.

François.

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