| 1 | | [http://www.linux-mips.org/wiki/Mips_Malta] |
| 2 | | [http://qemu.weilnetz.de/qemu-doc.html#MIPS-System-emulator] |
| | 1 | Port HelenOS to an existing 32-bit MIPS board / computer. |
| | 2 | |
| | 3 | Details:: |
| | 4 | HelenOS has run on two virtual mips32 platforms since very early in its history. At one point in time, a version of HelenOS even ran on the simulated MIPS Malta evaluation board. Unfortunately, the support for the only real MIPS hardware has been removed after some serious bit rot occurred in it. The current version of HelenOS/mips32 runs only on the machine emulated by the msim simulator and on the GXemul's ```oldtestmips``` machine. |
| | 5 | |
| | 6 | The goal of this project is to port HelenOS to a real 32-bit MIPS machine, such as the MIPS Malta evaluation board. |
| | 7 | |
| | 8 | What Gains and Benefits will this bring?:: |
| | 9 | It turns out that our mips32 support will be more useful if we change our focus from running on exotic and, sometimes, troublesome virtual platforms that are each supported by exactly one simulator, to running on existing hardware which is also emulated by multiple simulators (Qemu, GXemul, Simics etc.) |
| | 10 | |
| | 11 | Difficulty:: |
| | 12 | This project falls somewhere between medium and difficult on our difficulty scale. The fact that an ancient version of HelenOS once ran on MIPS Malta makes it a little bit less difficult as there will be no surprises in the core kernel support needed (i.e. no changes are expected). On the other hand, HelenOS has evolved and grown extraordinarily since then and there will be some new problems to solve, such as defeating the 4M boot image size limit. Moreover, the peripheral devices on the MIPS Malta evaluation board are basically PC-peripherals so the project can be extended in an interesting way by making sure HelenOS can make use of some of these devices. |
| | 13 | |
| | 14 | Required skills:: |
| | 15 | A successful applicant will be an experienced C programmer feeling comfortable touching all areas of HelenOS ranging from the boot code to the kernel and user space. The candidate shall not be afraid of learning / using the MIPS assembly and tweaking the HelenOS build configuration files. |
| | 16 | |
| | 17 | Documentation:: |
| | 18 | * [http://www.linux-mips.org/wiki/Mips_Malta] |
| | 19 | * [http://qemu.weilnetz.de/qemu-doc.html#MIPS-System-emulator] |
| | 20 | |
| | 21 | Possible mentors:: |
| | 22 | HelenOS Core Team, Jakub Jermar |
