4 ms·

OpenBSD on SGI: A Rollercoaster Story

85 points by brynet 7mo ago

pjmlp 7mo ago
Very interesting story. I used to regularly visit SGI documentation due to OpenGL/IrisGL, Inventor, and the original HP STL C++ documentation that SGI hosted, and naturally dive into Irix documentation in boring days.
justin66 7mo ago
That was a pretty epic story. I'll admit that I skimmed a few parts. :) Sad that it's discontinued, but mostly it's remarkable that so much was done by so few people.
fleeno 7mo ago
I wish it was still supported, but I'm sure I was one of very few that was actually using it! Even then it was just for fun.
- brynet 7mo ago
  There is someone on GitHub who's been trying to keep OpenBSD/sgi alive out-of-tree using bits and pieces (e.g: userland binaries) of OpenBSD/octeon, which remains supported. https://github.com/the-machine-hall/openbsd-sgi https://github.com/the-machine-hall/openbsd-sgi
  - fleeno 7mo ago
    Thanks, that looks promising!
- lproven 7mo ago
  As I understand it, Loongson is very close to MIPS. I think I remember reading that just 4 patented instructions were removed from the MIPS ISA, and I am not even sure that they were replaced. If so, that means that new MIPS-family hardware is being made today. And ISTM that represents a new target market or audience for this.
  - brynet 7mo ago
    AFAIK Loongson is dead and isn't made anymore, and unlike OpenBSD/sgi, Loongson was a little-endian arch. OpenBSD/octeon is a closer match, but also discontinued as Cavium switched to making ARM CPUs. LoongArch is a new ISA and isn't MIPS compatible, and OpenBSD doesn't support it.
    - lproven 7mo ago
      > FAIK Loongson is dead and isn't made anymore, Wrong. It is alive and well and in production from several vendors. https://www.loongson.cn/EN https://www.loongson.cn/EN > Loongson was a little-endian arch True. https://loongson.github.io/LoongArch-Documentation/LoongArch-Vol1-EN.html#endian https://loongson.github.io/LoongArch-Documentation/LoongArch... But... so? > LoongArch is a new ISA Partly. It is new but it's still close. A former colleague wrote about it: https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/02/china_loongson_mips/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/02/china_loongson_mips/ The article cites this post on the LKML: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/87pmu1q5ms.wl-maz@kernel.org/ https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/87pmu1q5ms.wl-maz@kernel.org/ « You keep saying "not MIPS", and yet all I see is a blind copy of the MIPS code. » Alpine supports it: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Loongarch64 https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Loongarch64 Debian is working on it: https://wiki.debian.org/LoongArch https://wiki.debian.org/LoongArch Gentoo is working on it: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:LoongArch https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:LoongArch Doesn't sound dead to me. Sounds a lot more alive than multiple architectures that OpenBSD does support.
      - brynet 7mo ago
        I didn't say Loogson the company was dead, or that LoongArch was either. I said the predecessor Loongson/Godson CPUs are, like the 2E and 2F, which were MIPS-compatible. They're not manufactured anymore, and were practically unobtainium when they were. LoongArch is not MIPS, despite it having similarities. It's a new platform/ISA and requires a completely different toolchain and new OS port. It is not at all "new MIPS-family hardware is being made today" like you originally wrote, and it has little to no relevance to SGI hardware.

85 points by brynet 7mo ago

pjmlp 7mo ago

Very interesting story. I used to regularly visit SGI documentation due to OpenGL/IrisGL, Inventor, and the original HP STL C++ documentation that SGI hosted, and naturally dive into Irix documentation in boring days.

justin66 7mo ago

That was a pretty epic story. I'll admit that I skimmed a few parts. :) Sad that it's discontinued, but mostly it's remarkable that so much was done by so few people.

fleeno 7mo ago

I wish it was still supported, but I'm sure I was one of very few that was actually using it! Even then it was just for fun.

brynet 7mo ago
There is someone on GitHub who's been trying to keep OpenBSD/sgi alive out-of-tree using bits and pieces (e.g: userland binaries) of OpenBSD/octeon, which remains supported. https://github.com/the-machine-hall/openbsd-sgi https://github.com/the-machine-hall/openbsd-sgi
- fleeno 7mo ago
  Thanks, that looks promising!
lproven 7mo ago
As I understand it, Loongson is very close to MIPS. I think I remember reading that just 4 patented instructions were removed from the MIPS ISA, and I am not even sure that they were replaced. If so, that means that new MIPS-family hardware is being made today. And ISTM that represents a new target market or audience for this.
- brynet 7mo ago
  AFAIK Loongson is dead and isn't made anymore, and unlike OpenBSD/sgi, Loongson was a little-endian arch. OpenBSD/octeon is a closer match, but also discontinued as Cavium switched to making ARM CPUs. LoongArch is a new ISA and isn't MIPS compatible, and OpenBSD doesn't support it.
  - lproven 7mo ago
    > FAIK Loongson is dead and isn't made anymore, Wrong. It is alive and well and in production from several vendors. https://www.loongson.cn/EN https://www.loongson.cn/EN > Loongson was a little-endian arch True. https://loongson.github.io/LoongArch-Documentation/LoongArch-Vol1-EN.html#endian https://loongson.github.io/LoongArch-Documentation/LoongArch... But... so? > LoongArch is a new ISA Partly. It is new but it's still close. A former colleague wrote about it: https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/02/china_loongson_mips/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/02/china_loongson_mips/ The article cites this post on the LKML: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/87pmu1q5ms.wl-maz@kernel.org/ https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/87pmu1q5ms.wl-maz@kernel.org/ « You keep saying "not MIPS", and yet all I see is a blind copy of the MIPS code. » Alpine supports it: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Loongarch64 https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Loongarch64 Debian is working on it: https://wiki.debian.org/LoongArch https://wiki.debian.org/LoongArch Gentoo is working on it: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:LoongArch https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:LoongArch Doesn't sound dead to me. Sounds a lot more alive than multiple architectures that OpenBSD does support.
    - brynet 7mo ago
      I didn't say Loogson the company was dead, or that LoongArch was either. I said the predecessor Loongson/Godson CPUs are, like the 2E and 2F, which were MIPS-compatible. They're not manufactured anymore, and were practically unobtainium when they were. LoongArch is not MIPS, despite it having similarities. It's a new platform/ISA and requires a completely different toolchain and new OS port. It is not at all "new MIPS-family hardware is being made today" like you originally wrote, and it has little to no relevance to SGI hardware.