> > > 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.