On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 4:43 PM, erik quanstrom <quans...@quanstro.net> wrote: >> so, here's a silghtly controversial (maybe) suggestion. Maybe my >> memory is wrong, but i believe the vx32 kernel is gcc-compiled. There >> is gcc for this CPU. It might be easier to start from the vx32 kernel >> and gcc to target this machine, rather than do a 64-bit MIPS port of >> the plan 9 C compiler. Or not: a few of the folks on this list could >> probably retarget in very short order (I'm not one of the,however). > > vx32 relies on x86 segment registers.
Let me say it differently. The way in which the plan 9 kernel code was changed to be gcc-compilable as part of the vx32 kernel might provide some hints as to how to change a whole plan 9 kernel. The point being, it is not impossible to get a gcc-compilable plan 9 kernel. We used to talk about this at LANL all the time: we called it the "evil project". (This idea predates vx32 but it was not my idea; I will let the evil person behind the evil project identify himself). This change would remove "have to port&test&validate&fix&validate&... the C compiler first" as a barrier to entry on new CPUs. see src/vx32 in the vx32 tree. ron
