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NetBSD/mips

Posted on 18. May, 2012 by fosslcevents in BSDCan, BSDCan2012, Programming, NetBSD, BSD

Location

Ottawa, ON

Canada

45° 25' 17.508" N, 75° 41' 49.8948" W

See map: Google Maps

Since NetBSD 5 was released, the support for MIPS on NetBSD has been completely revamped. It is now one of the more advanced ports of NetBSD. This talk is an overview on what has changed and what the current state of MIPS support and a brief look forward to what else is coming.

Subjects to be covered:

Why? (Big Embedded space, large amounts of memory, etc). Quick Introduction to the MIPS architecture

Overview of XLR/XLS/XLP

Overview of what changed (toolchain, SMP, pmap, PCU, compat32, new cpu support, use of MIPS features, fast softint) Design decisions

why N32 by default?
why no separate mips64?

Major features

64-bit address space
cpu abstraction
dynamic fixups (changing indirect calls to direct calls)
splsw
UVM changes
Fast software interrupts
SMP (for NetLogic XLR/XLS/XLP)
mostly lockless pmap
Choosing a new page size
COMPAT_NETBSD32 networking filesystem mounting
32-bit systems
N32 Kernels

Effects on the NetBSD in general

PCU
direct-mapped UAREAs
COMPAT_NETBSD32
common pmap for TLB based MMUs

What coming?

MIPS MTE support (MultiThread Extension)
Support for other MP MIPS chips (maybe)