Debian m68k Port Resurrected

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Posted by Unknown on Wednesday December 26, 2012 @05:00AM from the just-a-flesh-wound dept.

After two years of work, Debian m68k has working build servers, and is slowly working through the backlog of stale packages. "Contrary to some rumours which I've had to debunk over the years, the m68k port did not go into limbo because it was kicked out of the archive; instead, it did because recent versions of glibc require support for thread-local storage, a feature that wasn't available on m68k, and nobody with the required time, willingness, and skill set could be found to implement it. This changed a few years back, when some people wrote the required support, because they were paid to do so in order to make recent Linux run on ColdFire processors again. Since ColdFire and m68k processors are sufficiently similar, that meant the technical problem was solved. However, by that time we'd fallen so far behind that essentially, we needed to rebootstrap the port all over again. Doing that is nontrivial, and most of the m68k porters team just didn't have the time or willingness anymore to work on this; and for a while, it seemed like the m68k port was well and truly dead." The tales of acquiring the needed hardware are pretty interesting (one machine is an Amiga in a custom tower case).

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what about a linux kickstart rom?? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 05:06 · Score: 1

what about a linux kickstart rom??
1. Re:what about a linux kickstart rom?? by mirabilos · 2012-12-27 04:59 · Score: 2
  
  I'm not good with details on Amiga, but I think the procedure is:
  You boot some sort of Kickstart/Workbench, then run an AmigaOS program which is the Linux bootloader and pass it the kernel and, if needed, the initrd from the AmigaOS filesystem, it will load them and make them usable, then jump into Linux. From then onwards, that one will be the OS in charge, making ext4 available etc.
  Sadly, no kexec yet. Having to copy out the kernel instead of being able to load it directly from ext4 (or whatever you choose) would be cool.
  AFAIHH some of the emulation projects have made available Free (as in Freedom) ROMs for TOS (EmuTOS) and Kickstart, which contain enough code to run this without needing the proprietary Amiga stuff. But, like I said, I'm nowhere near knowledgeable about this part of those architectures, plus I mostly worked on (emulated and a few real) Ataris, not Amigas, while doing this. (And even there, I did as few as possible on the "native" side.)
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
why ? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 05:07 · Score: 1

besides the obvious "because we can" that is ?
1. Re:why ? by Lunix+Nutcase · 2012-12-26 05:13 · Score: 1, Flamebait
  
  It says right in the summary:
  
  because they were paid to do so in order to make recent Linux run on ColdFire processors again.
  Do you have the attention span of a gnat?
2. Re:why ? by vlm · 2012-12-26 05:19 · Score: 2
  
  besides the obvious "because we can" that is ?
  You'll have to ask them for sure.
  Something I know, that hasn't been mentioned, is freescale released at least some cores under an at least sorta-free license near a decade ago, so I would think it amusing to make a multi-machine build farm out of a big FPGA (or board full of FPGAs...) At least way back then, there were not many options for running linux on a (official released) FPGA soft core. I would imagine there are more options now if you want to run linux on a (official) soft core.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
3. Re:why ? by larry+bagina · 2012-12-26 05:32 · Score: 2
  
  CodeSourcery was paid to implement TLS for the coldfire. Debian wasn't paid to resurrect the m68k port.
  
  --
  Do you even lift?
  These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
4. Re:why ? by dreamchaser · 2012-12-26 05:35 · Score: 1
  
  It says right in the summary:
  
  because they were paid to do so in order to make recent Linux run on ColdFire processors again.
  Do you have the attention span of a gnat?
  Do you have the reading comprehension of a gnat? The 'Why' that was postulated was 'why resurrect the m68k port'. It had nothing to do with someone else paying to port it to Coldfire. The latter just gave the m68k geeks an opening. The rest of the 'Why' is 'because we can.'
I, for one,... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 05:07 · Score: 2, Funny

am pleased with this turn of events. To this day, m68k remains an important architecture; not every application needs multi-gigaFLOP/second performance or even an integrated FPU.
glibc sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 05:14 · Score: 0

They should have just used the BSD libc (like the opposite of GNU/kFreeBSD).
1. Re:glibc sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 08:48 · Score: 0
  
  libc in the BSDs are all different and designed to run on the specific kernel. It's not portable like glibc.
  Parts of libc are quite portable, but the system call bits are totally different between linux and BSD.
2. Re:glibc sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 11:50 · Score: 0
  
  glibc used to be portable. Now it's linux/gcc only and very version-specific. The *BSD libc is actually much more portable when you get down to it.
Hardware? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 05:14 · Score: 0

Virtual machine?
1. Re:Hardware? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 08:50 · Score: 0
  
  Actually the hardware used to build the packages doesn't have to be m68k.
  You can compile and build everything on an Intel machine using crossdevelopment environment.
  This is usually done for embedded systems that have ARM architecture as well, when the target system is not powerful enough to run gcc etc.
2. Re:Hardware? by fuzzywig · 2012-12-26 23:37 · Score: 1
  
  In one of the linked articles they mention that a decent Atari (ST presumably) emulator was instrumental in allowing them to work on m68k without having direct access to the hardware.
3. Re:Hardware? by mirabilos · 2012-12-27 04:18 · Score: 1
  
  Right, but we are doing this âoethe Debian wayâ, that is, running a native compilation and package generation in clean throw-away chroots. Debian package generation is not just compilation, itâ(TM)s a bunch of other stuff (dependency management, shared library management, etc.) and, personally *and* from my experience with the BSDs and FreeWRT, I am of the opinion that cross-compiling is only good for initially bootstrapping a port.
  Besides, natively compiling forced us to fix lots of bugs in the kernel, eglibc and gcc, and backport other stuff to gcc, and to eat our own dogfood.
  My goal with this was *not* just to have a system running Linux/m68k, but to have the process of auto-building packages working. (If you research, youâ(TM)ll find out that Iâ(TM)m a die-hard x86 and GW-BASIC fan, so I have no history with m68k other than eyeing them strangely for having the wrong endianness.) Also, I learned a lot of how Debian works in the process ;-)
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
Do they even sell 68k chips by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 05:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

"not every application needs multi-gigaFLOP/second performance or even an integrated FPU"
Well yeh, not everybody does. But do they even sell cheap 68k chips? And if they do, don't they sell *cheaper* ARM chips! Just because you don't need it, doesn't mean there's any advantage in using this.
If they make it will they come? Because if nobody uses it, it isn't properly tested, and if it isn't properly tested, nobody will use it.
68k has had it's day, it's dead, let it go.
1. Re:Do they even sell 68k chips by MightyYar · 2012-12-26 05:24 · Score: 0
  
  It may very well be on it's way out, but right now you can still get a ColdFire microcontroller for under $5 with motor control circuitry built-in.
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
2. Re:Do they even sell 68k chips by solidraven · 2012-12-26 05:34 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  ARM isn't always the right choice and it does have its problems. Additionally if you have to interface with an old system it's often easier to just grab a M68K or an old Intel 8xxx series device. The interface was already designed in a lot of cases for the older devices. And the M68K is advanced and fast enough to easily interface with modern hardware. So it actually does make for a pretty good bridge when you have to make two incompatible systems work together and don't want to go through the trouble of starting from scratch. Not to mention that the M68K is a great device to introduce people to the hardware side of embedded system design. Fairly cheap, comes in easy to solder packages unlike most ARM processors, robust, well documented, loads of software has been written for it, ...
  
  Totally worth the effort! It's not because something is old that it's not worth using anymore. Look at the Intel 8051 architecture. You'll find several microcontrollers based on that architecture in your house on this very moment. Sure it's an ancient 8 bit CISC architecture, but most designers are very familiar with it and it's one of the cheapest microcontrollers available so it still sees quite a lot of use. Fun fact is that it's commonly used as USB host controller.
3. Re:Do they even sell 68k chips by gsnedders · 2012-12-26 05:55 · Score: 2
  
  The TI-89 is 68k based to this day.
4. Re:Do they even sell 68k chips by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 06:55 · Score: 0
  
  SO? It is a calculator. The 8x series is based on a z80.
5. Re:Do they even sell 68k chips by petermgreen · 2012-12-26 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  microcontrollers don't run linux though. Linux requires a MMU and a megabyte or so of memory neither of which microcontrollers have.
  The question is do them68K/CF chips that can run linux offer any compelling advantage over arm or mips soloutions that would make up for the far lower software support?
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
6. Re:Do they even sell 68k chips by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 08:04 · Score: 0
  
  The question is do them68K/CF chips that can run linux offer any compelling advantage over arm or mips soloutions that would make up for the far lower software support?
  Yes but this depends entirely on your specific application.
  When you are producing 1,000,000 units or more of something then software support might be something that you can ignore. Something as simple as a controllable pull-up on the right pin or the DMA working slightly differently on a specific peripheral can easily make it worth to go for another architecture.
  The specific instruction set will probably not matter that much.
7. Re:Do they even sell 68k chips by ultrasawblade · 2012-12-26 08:10 · Score: 1
  
  uCLinux, a port of Linux, does run on architectures without MMUs, especially the m68k.
  m68k may be on the way out but what I want to run Linux on my Sega Genesis or Atari Jaguar, or any number of old arcade boards?
8. Re:Do they even sell 68k chips by dosius · 2012-12-26 11:43 · Score: 1
  
  A friend of mine wrote a PC emulator on top of an 8051-compatible microcontroller. xD
  -uso.
  
  --
  What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
9. Re:Do they even sell 68k chips by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 12:05 · Score: 0
  
  Then you're a moron for putting yourself through such suffering.
10. Re:Do they even sell 68k chips by epyT-R · 2012-12-26 15:10 · Score: 1
  
  so where's my sonic the hedgehog port? (I kid, the speed came from the custom gfx support, not the cpu itself)
11. Re:Do they even sell 68k chips by default+luser · 2012-12-27 03:26 · Score: 1
  
  Right here:
  Sonic MisAdventures
  I don't have the patience to try and find a USB->serial adapter to use my ancient GraphLink, otherwise I'd load it on my 89 and see how true-to-life it is.
  The REAL challenge would be to make a passable port of Sonic The Hedgehog to the Z80. Sega did this both as a last hurrah for the Sega Master System, and a port to promote the Game Gear.
  
  --
  Man is the animal that laughs.
  And occasionally whores for Karma.
12. Re:Do they even sell 68k chips by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-27 04:15 · Score: 0
  
  Granted, 68k did not advance as well as x86, but isn't your statement really equivalent to saying "x86 has had its day, it's dead, let it go"?
  I often wonder how things would have turned out if 68k became the standard CISC architecture and got souped up to the point where we were using it in modern multi-core processors. Its memory model, for one, is much nicer than x86.
Cool story, really.... by King_TJ · 2012-12-26 05:16 · Score: 5, Interesting

I doubt I'll *ever* make use of this project myself, but I'm inspired by the tale of how it went from "left for dead" to a full-on revival, based on something as unexpected as a rather unrelated 3rd. party software project (Atari emulator that happened to allow the m68k developers to work on their code from any laptop computer they happened to be using), as well as a single motivated individual bent on making his shell run on all known variants of Debian.
1. Re:Cool story, really.... by Spaseboy · 2012-12-26 08:54 · Score: 1
  
  I still have many 68k Macs that could be put to some kind of use if they could run a modern OS. The issue is that everything that sits on top of the Linux kernel has unfortunately followed the Windows and Mac OS trend of requiring GPU support. I don't know (yes, I could Bing it) if LXDE requires compositing to run decently...
  
  --
  "I don't want more choice, I just want nicer things!"
  -Jennifer Saunders as Edina Monsoon
2. Re:Cool story, really.... by larry+bagina · 2012-12-26 11:51 · Score: 1
  
  You could try e17. Since it was designed for mid-90s era computers.
  
  --
  Do you even lift?
  These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
3. Re:Cool story, really.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 12:09 · Score: 0
  
  (yes, I could Bing it)
  I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
4. Re:Cool story, really.... by smash · 2012-12-26 13:09 · Score: 2
  
  I know bing cops a lot of hate around here, but it's actually pretty good for some purposes. Unsafe search, for one :D
  
  --
  I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
5. Re:Cool story, really.... by BeaverCleaver · 2012-12-26 14:14 · Score: 1
  
  I hope its search is better than its translate, because Bing translate is unusable.
  
  --
  sustainable living
6. Re:Cool story, really.... by mirabilos · 2012-12-27 04:21 · Score: 1
  
  Not just Debian. Another two persons interested in porting mksh to anything possible and then some, as well as I, are trying to get an A/UX box running.
  Also, whatâ(TM)s the leading GNU/Linux distribution on cris (ETRAX 100)? Debian doesnâ(TM)t support thatâ¦ (also, I dab in klibc and dietlibc a bit, and the formerâ(TM)s got cris support code that warrants testing.)
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
7. Re:Cool story, really.... by mirabilos · 2012-12-27 04:29 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, I got KDE 4.8 working (to prove my patches against gcc-4.6 and qt4-x11 were correct). As long as you don't start KDEPIM (Kontact), it's actually decent fast (in tightvncserver):
  http://oi47.tinypic.com/2058vue.jpg
  Funnily enough, a sole GTK+ application (xchat) in a light-weight window manager (IceWM, otherwise much faster than KDE) was slower.
  Of course, once I started Kontact, all bets were off, but then, whenever I do that on the company desktop at work (where we're forced to use it for Groupware - the calendar you see is my actual account at work, sans a few sensitive information) even a modern x86 machine gets slow ;)
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
8. Re:Cool story, really.... by ChristTrekker · 2012-12-28 09:48 · Score: 1
  
  Ever heard of NetBSD? That and A/UX are the only *nixen I've ever run on my 68k Macs.
  
  --
  Constitutionally Correct
9. Re:Cool story, really.... by ChristTrekker · 2012-12-28 09:50 · Score: 1
  
  That's pretty cool. I was trying to port the pkgsrc framework to A/UX at one point. Nice to see lingering enthusiasm for A/UX out there. If you succeed, let me know, I'll update the FAQ.
  
  --
  Constitutionally Correct
Wrong holiday. by dgatwood · 2012-12-26 05:25 · Score: 4, Funny

The metaphor is all wrong. It's Christmas, not Easter. You're supposed to say that an updated version of the Debian m68k port was delivered by Santa, or that Rudolph helped them find their way back to the main branch, or that wise men brought Debian gifts of gold, frankincense, and m68k ports.

--
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
1. Re:Wrong holiday. by greg1104 · 2012-12-26 05:58 · Score: 2
  
  They've decorated and lit an old tree that no one else cared about. Probably by standing around it waving their arms, like in the Charlie Brown Christmas special.
2. Re:Wrong holiday. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 08:18 · Score: 0
  
  A gift from Hanukkah Harry seems more apt: by all reconing the flame should have gone out long ago, but by the miracle of D*bian it just keeps going.
3. Re:Wrong holiday. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 13:32 · Score: 0
  
  They got the instruction wrong, they were supposed to *burn* the tree, not decorate and light it!
4. Re:Wrong holiday. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 22:07 · Score: 0
  
  A gift from Hanukkah Harry seems more apt...
  apt-get or aptitude?
5. Re:Wrong holiday. by mirabilos · 2012-12-27 04:23 · Score: 1
  
  The motto in the IRC channel (#debian-68k on OFTC) was actually "Go away Santa. We're hacking code."
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
6. Re:Wrong holiday. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-27 13:49 · Score: 0
  
  apt-get or aptitude?
  apt-get, since it's old testament.
Interesting given recent removal of 386 support by cheesybagel · 2012-12-26 05:26 · Score: 1

...in the Linux kernel.
I have fond memories of 68k hardware but I am surprised people even bother with stuff like this in 2012.
1. Re:Interesting given recent removal of 386 support by Predius · 2012-12-26 05:32 · Score: 2
  
  I'm still curious if 386 support would be accepted back in if it was done as a separate arch to keep it from mucking up the regular/later x86 branch?
2. Re:Interesting given recent removal of 386 support by Lunix+Nutcase · 2012-12-26 05:39 · Score: 1
  
  Because 68k chips are still used for embedded work like the ColdFires mentioned in the summary.
3. Re:Interesting given recent removal of 386 support by ledow · 2012-12-26 05:41 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Like anything - if someone does the hard work, and it's supported enough, and it doesn't break OTHER architectures, there's no reason why not.
  It just seems that m68k (and other projects along the same lines) have people willing to do all that work, whereas the 386 architecture doesn't (yet?).
  This is the thing I actually quite like about Linux. MCA support? Few used it, fewer wanted it enough to do the so, so bye-bye. But other buses? They are still around. Applies to buses, architectures, drivers, features, even "helper code" of one type or another.
  If someone's willing to put in the back-breaking to get it up to standard, there's no reason to NOT let it in. Unfortunately, that standard has to be high for a number of reasons (e.g. legal obligations like licensing, coding quality, support, ongoing maintenance etc.). And for some, it's so high it doesn't justify the work.
  Linux is a meritocracy, like more open-source code. If there's a reason to do so, and it's done well, it happens. If not, it doesn't. If only parts of law and government were like that.
4. Re:Interesting given recent removal of 386 support by confused+one · 2012-12-26 06:12 · Score: 1
  
  I'm somewhat surprised they go to the trouble to resurrect and upgrade Amigas to do this work. There are plenty of recent ColdFire dev boards that could be used, if they can get someone to donate the board. Coworker tells me the default install for some of those boards is dicey and could stand to benefit from some attention.
5. Re:Interesting given recent removal of 386 support by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 06:26 · Score: 0
  
  Why not? If you know a guy who's got an Amiga gathering dust in his closet, you don't need somebody to shell out money for a Coldfire and then donate it out the kindness of their heart.
  Also, Amigas have mad geek cred.
6. Re:Interesting given recent removal of 386 support by Megane · 2012-12-26 06:40 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The specific reasons to drop 386 support from the kernel were because 1) its MMU is substandard compared to 486 and later and causes a lot of complications in the kernel, 2) it doesn't have CMPXCHG which is used for semaphores (in glibc, not just the kernel), and 3) it doesn't have the byte swap instruction which makes a big difference in network code.
  Dropping 386 support is like dropping 68000 and 68010 support. It's the oldest sub-architecture, lacking a lot of good improvements that came in the next generation. Guess what? Debian dropped 386 years ago, and this m68k port doesn't work with anything less than a 68020+MMU. For all I know, the kernel doesn't support 68000 or 68010 either.
  Nobody uses anything anymore that won't work a 486 build and thus requires 386, aside from someone with a 20-year old PC. But m68k is a whole architecture (like x86), and Coldfire is still Not Dead Yet. Seriously, do YOU have anything that requires a 386 build or know anybody who does? If not, why the hell do you even care, other than just to be a troll?
  
  --
  #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
7. Re:Interesting given recent removal of 386 support by Predius · 2012-12-26 06:52 · Score: 2
  
  As a matter of fact, I do have gear in use that is affected by the removal of 386 support. (The linux terminal server project crowd in particular is affected by this also.) If I was trying to troll I think I'd have been a bit more... obnoxious with my wording? Back to the topic at hand, my understanding was that it wasn't the 386's shortcomings that doomed it, it was that they had to invoke workarounds in the x86 branch for them, and THAT was where the hardship came from when trying to move the ball forward over time. In theory, a separate arch shouldn't trigger the same pain as x86 would be free to grow, dead86 would then have to deal with issues as they cropped up separately, without impacting the other arches any more.
8. Re:Interesting given recent removal of 386 support by Art+Challenor · 2012-12-26 07:17 · Score: 1
  
  My recollection (and no, I'm not going back to RTFA) is that it was the odd-ball 386's (386SX?) that was removed, not the entire 386 tree.
9. Re:Interesting given recent removal of 386 support by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 08:03 · Score: 0
  
  Could you just please calm down? You don't need to use caps or bold text, and you don't need to speak in an accusatory manner to the parent. There was nothing "trolling" about his/her post.
  If you feel too frustrated when writing a response, cool it for a while, relax, and then come back later. You'll find that it's easier to have more civil responses when you are in a peaceful mindset. Let's keep the discussion friendly!
10. Re:Interesting given recent removal of 386 support by Sigg3.net · 2012-12-26 17:33 · Score: 1
  
  I'd say most representative democracies are exactly meritocratic. Unfortunately, the merits judged by are not transparent..
  
  --
  Defining Statistics and Social Research
11. Re:Interesting given recent removal of 386 support by wouterke · 2012-12-26 21:29 · Score: 1
  
  We (author of article being quoted here ;-) actually do own ColdFire V4E boards, which were donated by Freescale at some point. Unfortunately they can't be used for the plain m68k port without some substantial work.
  While the ColdFire is sufficiently similar to the m68k so that code written to support one processor (at least in userspace) benefits the technical situation for the other, unfortunately they are also sufficiently different that you can't just take binaries for one processor and try to run them on the other.
  I /may/ decide to bootstrap a ColdFire port at some point, but it won't be tomorrow.
12. Re:Interesting given recent removal of 386 support by kjs3 · 2012-12-27 11:10 · Score: 1
  
  > Nobody uses anything anymore that won't work a 486 build and thus requires 386, aside from someone with a 20-year old PC.
  This is factually untrue. The chip was in production until 2007 and shows up in all sorts of odd/interesting things. There's an entire ecosystem of STD-BUS and Multibus 386 systems that are still supported and could run Linux, not to mention things like the Nokia 9000.
Stop. Just stop. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 06:23 · Score: 0, Troll

Please put your time into something more constructive instead of reviving an ancient platform for no useful purpose aside from nostalgia.
1. Re:Stop. Just stop. by gnu-sucks · 2012-12-26 06:36 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Perhaps because you are more of an "appliance operator" you don't appreciate the science and engineering behind the scenes.
  Working with old hardware, like new hardware, presents a lot of challenges. The learning that takes place is very useful.
  Unlike new hardware, old hardware is cheap and plentiful. Yard sales, garages, surplus stores... this is the place to go. For new hardware, you are looking at some money.
  The learning that takes place on the old hardware is useful on problems beyond this "ancient platform". The folks that accomplished this port have flexed their brains around complicated problems, and are thus able to process other complicated problems more efficiently.
  Bottom line, some people are passionate about engineering and science, and do it because they enjoy the learning process.
2. Re:Stop. Just stop. by Megane · 2012-12-26 06:48 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Ever hear of Coldfire? It isn't nostalgia (not yet, at least), it's still a viable embedded CPU architecture, less than 10 years old. It's a RISC-ified 68K, with a few instructions removed (they can be implemented via the illegal instruction trap) to make the RISC work. If you had bothered to read TFS, you would see that was what started all this.
  Maybe you should put your time into something more constructive instead of trolling for no useful purpose at all.
  
  --
  #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
3. Re:Stop. Just stop. by TheRaven64 · 2012-12-26 06:56 · Score: 2
  
  From the article you linked:
  
  June 2010, Freescale announced the ColdFire+ line, which is a ColdFire V1 core using a 90 nm TFS technology
  90nm? In 2010? That should be enough to tell you that Freescale doesn't care. A chip announced in 2010 (no idea when, or even if, it actually shipped), using a process that was state of the art in 2002. Cheap parts were using 65nm in 2010. 90nm is the stuff you stick in the fabs that you don't have the spare capital to refurbish and want to keep ticking over. Followed by:
  
  The future of the ColdFire architecture is uncertain given that Freescale has been focusing on ARM-based cores in this market segment
  Exactly.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
4. Re:Stop. Just stop. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 07:31 · Score: 0
  
  The old hardware is cheap and plentiful? PPCs are cheap and plentiful. Pentium 1-3's are cheap and plentiful. Obviously 68K systems aren't because two years in they've still got the vast majority of packages to build and they're complaining they can't find enough equipment to speed things up.
  Engineering and science perhaps, but there are many problems to tackle on modern equipment that affect massive amounts of users every day.
5. Re:Stop. Just stop. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 08:28 · Score: 0
  
  Coldfire is dead architecture, Freescale is barely giving it the time of day. Perhaps we should consolidate platforms instead of having to maintain a kernel that runs badly on most of them.
6. Re:Stop. Just stop. by Cid+Highwind · 2012-12-26 08:45 · Score: 1
  
  Stop. Just stop.
  Please put your time into something more constructive than yet another implementation of the standard slashdot "work on a project I like, not that thing you find interesting" post that serves no purpose aside from trolling.
  
  --
  0 1 - just my two bits
7. Re:Stop. Just stop. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 10:39 · Score: 0
  
  Actually, sinced Freescale is a fabless operation, it could be just that there is more free capacity in the 90 nm fabs, and since the ColdFire core is quite simple and small, there may not be any great need to use a more modern process.
8. Re:Stop. Just stop. by rev0lt · 2012-12-26 11:57 · Score: 2
  
  I'm not familiarized with ColdFire, but the grid size on the manufacturing process is no way of measuring the relevance of a given product. There are a ton of applications that actually require reliable processors instead of "latest tech". Some embedded applications may require 10-20yr lifespan under radiation, extreme heat, magnetic interference, and so on and so on. Just because they aren't the best choice to create handheld devices to play Angry Birds, or to create desktop computers, doesn't mean they aren't useful.
9. Re:Stop. Just stop. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 12:44 · Score: 0
  
  You missed one...
  Old hardware is easier to understand. Cut teeth on 8bit micros. In the 80s, wrote a dissassembler, and a complier in assembly for z80/8080/8080a. Made a silly program (assembler z80 and 6502) that was able to switch between a z80 on an add-in card and the 6502 in an apple II, running a bit on each (never could get them both to run in parallel, though). After playing around for a bit, I got access to "tons" of memory, by paging program memory into the video ram on an apple 80 column card, etc. Tons of fun with a commodore 64 too, including burning custom roms.
  These were all fun projects that had a far lower barrier to entry than trying the equivalent on modern (complex) hardware (or with modern OSs that control access to hardware).
10. Re:Stop. Just stop. by mirabilos · 2012-12-27 04:42 · Score: 1
  
  Finding bugs in Debian, gcc, eglibc, the Linux kernel, by running it on minority systems is a decent outcome of this, Iâ(TM)d say.
  The purpose of having bragging rights that mksh works on all platforms, no matter what obscure, is personal, so you canâ(TM)t measure relevance anyway. Iâ(TM)ve even done DEC ULTRIX and Haiku successfully. Oh, and Plan 9â¦
  Besides, it was a nice project to learn about how Debian works ;-)
  You should learn to think outside of the box. What makes you think reviving ancient hardware ever was the purpose?
  Besides this, I think the other replies already said everything needed.
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
11. Re:Stop. Just stop. by AdamHaun · 2012-12-27 08:33 · Score: 1
  
  90nm? In 2010? That should be enough to tell you that Freescale doesn't care. A chip announced in 2010 (no idea when, or even if, it actually shipped), using a process that was state of the art in 2002.
  ColdFire is a line of microcontrollers. Microcontrollers are not built on state of the art CMOS processes, partly to keep the cost down, partly to keep the power consumption down, and partly because they need high-quality embedded NOR flash, making them not pure CMOS anymore. This means you're making a whole separate, specialized process for your MCUs. In that context, 90nm is pretty good. I think the absolute top of the line for flash MCUs right now is 55nm, which might not even be in production yet. There are plenty of MCUs still in production at 180nm.
  TL;DR: Embedded processing and desktop CPUs are Not The Same Thing.
  
  --
  Visit the
Former user by gnu-sucks · 2012-12-26 06:29 · Score: 1

As a former m68k user, I can tell you this is a very good distro.
You can really breath new life into older computers. The results are often startling and better than their intel cousins from the same era. Not to say that this is a good "production environment" strategy, but if you have old macs collecting dust, and you'd like to learn some real linux-fu, install m68k linux on them. You will end up with useful computers, sometimes even useful for light desktop. Definitely useful for low-volume web servers, mail, ssh, etc.
This is a lot of fun and there are plenty of old macs available for almost nothing. Get out there and learn!
1. Re:Former user by mirabilos · 2012-12-28 02:16 · Score: 1
  
  Needless to say that, even *if* there's an exploit for say, the webserver, out there: nobody's going to write shellcode for m68k.
  For the same reason, Miod Vallat of OpenBSD fame runs his website on a VAX, and the BSI is said to still use BS/2000 somewhere. Even if not unbreakable, nobody's going to be able to use it ;-) At least not your average 08/15 skriptkiddie.
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
What tales? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 06:37 · Score: 0

>> The tales of acquiring the needed hardware are pretty interesting (one machine is an Amiga in a custom tower case).
The article you posted has no comment of Commodore or Amiga whatsoever. Nice editing slashdot.
1. Re:What tales? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 07:33 · Score: 0
  
  Mid of November I already wrote about "Resurrecting m68k"
  Click that link and ...
  
  Elgar is an Amiga 4000 Desktop built into a custom tower case. It took some weeks and months until I found a little time to care about Elgar, but now it's up and running again
Actually, a cool thing by northar · 2012-12-26 07:02 · Score: 1

I have a stash of retrocomputers and consoles, and for everyone of them that i can get to run *nix it's always cool. Amiga now has DebianM68k and NetBSD in new versions, PS2 has the kernelloader live cd, My old Mac PPC has Linux Minut, and my Sam460 has Debian too. As for the Speccy - well at least it got esxdos:)
1. Re:Actually, a cool thing by eclectro · 2012-12-26 14:30 · Score: 1
  
  I'm glad there is an apparent consensus on "cool." I just went through a recent horrible forced move and I was thinking how much of an idiot I could be for hanging onto all the really old mac stuff plus documentation.
  
  --
  Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Does it run on qemu? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 07:16 · Score: 0

Just wondering... that would make the issues with hardware a little easier to deal with...
Nope, maybe next time you should find a reference. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 07:57 · Score: 1

There was no meaningful software level difference between 386SX and 386DX - it was basically just a difference in hardware bus width that normal programs, even kernel level, wouldn't care about.
In 486 land, the SX/DX was there to show whether the 486's internal math coprocessor was allowed to be used or not.
WinUAE by Weaselmancer · 2012-12-26 09:07 · Score: 1

Not too long ago, WinUAE added MMU support. And it didn't take the community long to get Linux running on it.
It's nice seeing Linux run in WinUAE, but the distro is rather dated. It would be nice to have something recent running in WinUAE. And before you ask, I have no idea why this is so cool to me and why I want this so much. I just know that I do. Having a recent distro running in WinUAE is for some odd reason very nifty.
Can't explain it. Still though, I'm just very happy about this news.

--
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
1. Re:WinUAE by Bert64 · 2012-12-26 12:31 · Score: 1
  
  Would be more interesting to get it to run AMIX tho...
  Linux/m68k can already run under emulation on qemu (generic 68k, not amiga specific), and there is very little (if anything) available for linux/68k that doesn't run on linux/x86. I never understood why so many hardware emulators only seem able to run linux (which the emulator itself generally runs on anyway), and cannot run whatever was the native os of the time for these hardware types.
  
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2. Re:WinUAE by mirabilos · 2012-12-27 04:44 · Score: 1
  
  Last time I looked, qemu-system-m68k lacked MMU support.
  Someone recently said qemu-user-m68k was usable, but that does syscall level translation (I wonder what they do about the TLS and atomic-cmpxchg syscalls that are recent-m68k specific) and thus doesn't suffice.
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
3. Re:WinUAE by mirabilos · 2012-12-27 04:48 · Score: 1
  
  cbmuser already issued an Intent To Package FS-UAE to Debian, which makes use of WinUAE's "accurate emulation".
  I believe that you should be able to use wouter's d-i build from http://people.debian.org/~wouter/d-i/ to install an m68k system from unstable (with the usual caveats, i.e. installing or debootstrapping unstable does not always work). Note that the build is still "fresh" and nobody has tested it yet, so a failure would not mean an emulation problem.
  Once FS-UAE is in Debian, I'll likely publish a disc image for starters like https://wiki.debian.org/Aranym/Quick for the emulated Atari. (Today, I'll make updated .tar.gz archives of a debootstrap result, which helps people already running etch-m68k or sarge (the image you linked is Debian 3.1 = sarge) to quickly install a fresh system, or at least the user space part.)
  Watch the debian-68k@lists.d.o mailing list, and/or the Debian Wiki, for progress.
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
4. Re:WinUAE by Weaselmancer · 2012-12-27 20:04 · Score: 1
  
  You sir, are a scholar and a gentleman. Thanks for the info!
  Been following the MMU development on WinUAE for a while and I think you'd be pleased to know the base MMU code was lifted from Aranym in the first place. A few bugs were found that were corner cases that Toni found. I believe there was some effort to back-port those fixes to Aranym, or at least let their devs know about them. If you're interested you could drop a message to him and I'm sure he would point them out.
  If I get some spare time I will give the d-i build a shot. If nobody has been in there debugging maybe I could be of some service there.
  
  --
  Weaselmancer
  rediculous.
5. Re:WinUAE by mirabilos · 2012-12-28 01:54 · Score: 1
  
  Ah, thanks for the additional background. Yes, a pointer to the problems would probably be appreciated by the ARAnyM developers.
  The d-i will not work right now, not with the normal mirrors at least, due to debootstrap being unable to cope with needing to pull packages from *two* distributions (unstable and unreleased), we think. We're working on it.
  https://wiki.debian.org/M68k/Installing in the meantime has an ext2fs image you can use / boot into, and kernels.
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
6809xxxxxx by fyngyrz · 2012-12-26 09:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

I keep hoping someone will take the 6809 architecture, extend it to 64 bits wide per register, add an MMU, implement underneath a modern microcoded engine (the original was random logic), and throw an FPU on-board. Maybe add a few megs of register pages for context switching, a few instructions to give it supervisor/user smarts.
It was *so* easy to write code for that thing; it had pretty much the perfect mix of instructions -- way better than the 68000, for instance. The 6809 was the best 8 bit uP ever from a programming POV. I wrote a couple of compilers for it over the years, it felt like the uP designers totally knew what I was going to need.
Probably never happen.
Pffftbt.

--
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
1. Re:6809xxxxxx by solidraven · 2012-12-26 10:13 · Score: 1
  
  Sadly the needs of software designers often differ from what delivers high performing hardware :(
2. Re:6809xxxxxx by fyngyrz · 2012-12-26 15:08 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, that's true. But if the software is 10x faster because the instruction set allows the compiler to produce excellent code, but the hardware is 1/2 as fast, you end up with software that is "only" 5x as fast.
  Just throwing numbers, admittedly, because I don't really have deep familiarity with today's machine code, but in the 6809's day, it could do with one instruction what took several on the 6800 or many on the 6502, and the register capabilities were such that you didn't need to be constantly storing them and restoring them... with four index registers, two of which could be stack pointers, 50-odd indexing modes, that thing just felt like a code-genertor's dream. Programming the Z80 was a nightmare by comparison, that thing seemed to have been designed by 20 people in 20 separate offices who never, ever talked to each other.
  I often wondered what an expanded design would be like, but Motorola really disappointed me with the 68000 and its descendants. Lots of goodies we were used to were missing; fairly obvious things that were missing in the 6809 were *also* still missing; I wrote a lot of assembler for the 68k and while it was pretty easy -- moderately consistent uP -- it wasn't a strong uP the way the 6809 was.
  
  --
  I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
3. Re:6809xxxxxx by solidraven · 2012-12-26 21:31 · Score: 1
  
  Thing is, we have been avoiding microcode. It's slow, RISC makes for faster designs that are easier to design and optimize. You can make a simple hardware fsm that gets the job done. Uses less area as well. We don't quite care anymore about assembly programmers I guess. This leads to ugly but fast instructions. RISC also makes pipelining damn easy, the gain of that outweighs your coding efficiency increase by an astronomical margin. And in the end the compilers don't seem to mind much if they use good optimization techniques. Programmers and compilers tend to be several years behind on the hardware though, a large performance increase is to be gained by closing that gap!
4. Re:6809xxxxxx by fyngyrz · 2012-12-27 07:11 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I probably just don't really understand the difference. Looking at the code the GCC compiler produces, all I can think is "that's awful"... but if it's some crazy factor faster -- like twenty or so -- then yeah, it'd come out ahead of something that took 2...6 clocks per instruction (which is where most of the 6809's instructions landed.) Also, the 6809 was random logic... one of the reasons they said they couldn't really speed it up much.
  
  --
  I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
5. Re:6809xxxxxx by solidraven · 2012-12-27 08:33 · Score: 1
  
  Well yes, but you have levels of complication in that. I'd hardly call the 6809 a RISC architecture. Complicated asynchronous logic becomes rather unreliable if you keep demanding faster speeds from it.
6. Re:6809xxxxxx by sydbarrett74 · 2012-12-27 23:18 · Score: 1
  
  Your proposal sounds like a perfect Kickstarter project. If you can make an adequate sales pitch to IC designers and other such people, it shouldn't be that hard of a goal to realise.
  
  --
  'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
Re:I guess it's "News for Nerds" by Kneo24 · 2012-12-26 10:31 · Score: 1

I've always taken the slogan differently. That if it's "news for nerds", then it falls in the "stuff that matters" category.
Time Better Spent by FyberOptic · 2012-12-26 11:12 · Score: 1

There's a big difference between being a hobbyist developer for an old platform and maintaining a ported operating system for it. It's time to let it go, folks. I have quite a bit of nostalgia for my old 8088, but it doesn't mean I'm going to put weeks or months of my life into writing code for it anymore. There's quite a lot of low-power modern architectures out there that a person could spend their time porting software to instead.
NetBSD by manu0601 · 2012-12-26 15:19 · Score: 1

FWIW, latest NetBSD 6.0 still supports mac68k fine, and has never ceased to do.
1. Re:NetBSD by hson · 2012-12-27 00:51 · Score: 1
  
  There are many more m68k platforms supported by NetBSD.
  The full list: amiga, atari, cesfic, hp300, luna68k, mac68k, mvme68k, news68k, next68k, sun3 and x68k.
2. Re:NetBSD by mirabilos · 2012-12-27 04:53 · Score: 1
  
  Right, but I recently tried to install NetBSD/atari on AtariFrosch's box, and the installer died on itself. I, having BSD experience, managed to still install it by manually untarring the sets, running MAKEDEV, etc. but the kernel seems to have hardcoded booting into securelevel -1 and single user, so the system doesn't come up afterwards without some manual effort on each boot.
  No NetBSDÂ® person I asked could help, and the mailing list was dead as well.
  Granted, the software works, but it's less refined. (That being said, while Wouter built a debian-installer image, nobody has tested it yet, and installing sid is always chancy due to its moving nature. But debootstrap, edit fstab, get a kernel and boot into it works.)
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
3. Re:NetBSD by manu0601 · 2012-12-27 05:14 · Score: 1
  
  the kernel seems to have hardcoded booting into securelevel -1 and single user, so the system doesn't come up afterwards without some manual effort on each boot.
  No NetBSDÂ® person I asked could help
  Some help from an unexpected place: I suspect it cannot find the root filesystem, then drop into single user and asks you where it is. Is that the case? If this is your problem, you can patch the kernel with gdb (or rebuild a kernel, but that takes longer) in order to hardcode the right root. Send me a private message if you need assistance.
4. Re:NetBSD by mirabilos · 2012-12-27 05:42 · Score: 1
  
  IIRC, that wasn't it: it did find the root filesystem but was hardcoded to single user and securelevel -1 (I should note that this is the same kernel as was used for the installation).
  But thanks for the offer anyway ;-)
  Since I can't find an eMail in the archives, I assume I only asked in IRC :( but I did the installation attempt at a conference, so...
  Ask Atari-Frosch in #atari-home on OFTC for details, it's her computer, and she can power it on and look. (I think Linux failed due to too few ST-RAM for the kernel to fit. It's rather fat nowadays...)
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
5. Re:NetBSD by manu0601 · 2012-12-27 14:51 · Score: 1
  
  IIRC, that wasn't it: it did find the root filesystem but was hardcoded to single user and securelevel -1 (I should note that this is the same kernel as was used for the installation).
  The INSECURE kernel option does that, and indeed all atari kernels in the distribution have it, but it should not drop you in single user at boot time.
6. Re:NetBSD by mirabilos · 2012-12-27 15:07 · Score: 1
  
  Mhm. Can the kernel image be changed, like with config(8) -ef /bsd on MirBSD/OpenBSD, to not do that?
  I think something in /etc/rc drops me to single user when INSECURE is set, but itâ(TM)s been quite an amount of months, so I do not remember precisely.
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
7. Re:NetBSD by manu0601 · 2012-12-27 16:05 · Score: 1
  
  Mhm. Can the kernel image be changed, like with config(8) -ef /bsd on MirBSD/OpenBSD, to not do that?
  You would need to rebuild the kernel (it is easy to cross-build from any POSIX system, it would save some time). But I do not think this is the reason for the single user drop
  
  I think something in /etc/rc drops me to single user when INSECURE is set, but itâ(TM)s been quite an amount of months, so I do not remember precisely.
  Then it would be easier to patch /etc/rc, but it would definitively help to see your boot messages
8. Re:NetBSD by mirabilos · 2012-12-27 16:14 · Score: 1
  
  I've asked Atari-Frosch to power on the machine and then comment here, so we will have boot messages.
  Thanks for the help!
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
9. Re:NetBSD by ragnar76 · 2012-12-27 16:42 · Score: 1
  
  I have her TT atm. and i can run the test. right now the 29c3 is running. it could take a few hours for reply (have to keep our hackerspace open).
I'm watching this by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 19:33 · Score: 0

I took an awesome course on 68k assembly programming in college not too long ago. If Linux makes it to the 68k then the course I took about computer architecture can progress past memory paging and DMA into actually showing the class how it all works together using Linux examples.
My dream computer as a child had an 68000 cpu. by master_p · 2012-12-26 23:13 · Score: 1

It also had ultra advanced sprite scaling chips to allow me to play outrun, powerdrift, galaxy force and space harrier as seen in the arcades.
Unfortunately, it never happened.
1. Re:My dream computer as a child had an 68000 cpu. by TheMMaster · 2012-12-27 04:57 · Score: 1
  
  It kind of did, Sega CD 32x! :)
  
  --
  Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
AMIX (was Re: WinUAE) by mirabilos · 2012-12-27 04:49 · Score: 1

By the way, if you get AMIX running and with an ANSI C compiler, join the IRC channel #!/bin/mksh (yes, that's really its name) on Freenode, so we can port mksh to it ;-)
If you are interested, that is.

--
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
1. Re:AMIX (was Re: WinUAE) by Bert64 · 2012-12-27 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  Haha wow i used to use an irc channel called #!/bin/sh
  I have a working AMIX system, a genuine Amiga 3000UX although it don't keep it powered up all the time... It comes with an old version of GCC (1.4.x if i remember) so it may be possible (albeit time consuming) to compile mksh on it. I will give it a try once i finish moving house.
  
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2. Re:AMIX (was Re: WinUAE) by mirabilos · 2012-12-27 07:06 · Score: 1
  
  Cool, thanks!
  GCC 1.42 is fine (we run that on BSDi BSD/OS 3.1 as well, and RT compiled it on Minix-vmd since the shipped GCC 1.40 was broken); mksh is amazingly portable.
  Do come over to the channel though ;) We've got a few tricks.
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
3. Re:AMIX (was Re: WinUAE) by mirabilos · 2013-01-01 16:25 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, confused that. He built it on Linux 0.13 or something like that; Minix-vmd has ACK that works fine. On 386BSD 0.0 even GCC 1.39 was usable ;-)
  But we're getting off-topic slowly... though that's probably normal.
  
  --
  My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)