[9fans] nice terminal...

[Nicolas Bercher]

Does anyone know about the Plan 9 support status for the Raspberry Pi ?

Nicolas

[Calvin Morrison]

I was just thinking about this while drinking my coffee.

A few perspective problems :

1. Broadcom drivers that are more locked down than Mr. Manson.

2. The boot process is insanely weird. It's boots by bootstrapping the GPU
or something crazy.

3. No cd-rom drive to do a CD install. Probably easy to work around (I've
only installed it this way)

Calvin

Post by Nicolas Bercher
Does anyone know about the Plan 9 support status for the Raspberry Pi ?
Nicolas

[Stephen Wiley]

I've been thinking about this for a while as well (I don't have one yet though... so I haven't gone far beyond thinking)

Post by Calvin Morrison
1. Broadcom drivers that are more locked down than Mr. Manson.

There is a RiscOS port, perhaps that has something...

Post by Calvin Morrison
2. The boot process is insanely weird. It's boots by bootstrapping the GPU or something crazy.

Perhaps we could port 9load to RiscOS? (like the pc version on dos) It sounds like a simple cooperative multitasking os, but I'm no expert.

I'm hoping to mess with this when mine ships (again, supposedly in may).

[Paweł Lasek]

Post by Calvin Morrison
I was just thinking about this while drinking my coffee.
1. Broadcom drivers that are more locked down than Mr. Manson.

The 3D part is - simple framebuffer should work, afaik.

Post by Calvin Morrison
2. The boot process is insanely weird. It's boots by bootstrapping the GPU
or something crazy.

Not really - it's just that the GPU contains the controller chip, and
the first stage bootloader is thus written in it. It will happily load
anything that has Linux-style header and resides on first,
FAT-formatted dos partition on the SD card, afaik.

Post by Calvin Morrison
3. No cd-rom drive to do a CD install. Probably easy to work around (I've
only installed it this way)

See above :)

Post by Calvin Morrison
Calvin

[Richard Miller]

My delivery note says "May"

You're lucky. I'm on the waiting list to be allowed onto
the pre-order queue.

[erik quanstrom]

Post by Richard Miller

My delivery note says "May"

You're lucky. I'm on the waiting list to be allowed onto
the pre-order queue.

ooooh you're lucky. ... probablly the little jailies' pet, aren't we?
what i wouldn't give to be on the waiting list to be allowed onto
the pre-order queue.

i don't really want one. just couldn't resist the reference. :-)

- erik

[David Leimbach]

Post by Richard Miller

My delivery note says "May"

You're lucky. I'm on the waiting list to be allowed onto
the pre-order queue.
Luxury! There were four of us living in a brown paper bag in a septic

tank...

(sorry couldn't resist)

[Charles Forsyth]

You have to have got one first. My delivery note says "May" and the blog
said the initial batch had a part wrong (stopping ether from working).

Post by Nicolas Bercher
Does anyone know about the Plan 9 support status for the Raspberry Pi ?

[Nicolas Bercher]

Post by Charles Forsyth
You have to have got one first. My delivery note says "May" and the blog
said the initial batch had a part wrong (stopping ether from working).

OK, I'll wait.
For sure this device will stimulate some Plan 9 users!

Nicolas

[Jeffrey Green]

So, a month has gone by and a slice of raspberry pi is looking more and more tempting these days, especially since "official" delivery seems to have happened last week. Has anyone yet chanced an introduction of one to plan9? I would guess the initial booting would be the biggest hurdle. What tools do we have to work with in that situation?

-jeff

You have to have got one first. My delivery note says "May" and the blog said the initial batch had a part wrong (stopping ether from working).
Does anyone know about the Plan 9 support status for the Raspberry Pi ?

[Tristan]

Post by Jeffrey Green
So, a month has gone by and a slice of raspberry pi is looking more and
more tempting these days, especially since "official" delivery seems to
have happened last week. Has anyone yet chanced an introduction of one
to plan9? I would guess the initial booting would be the biggest
hurdle.

Not to stop anyone, but I hear getting documentation from Broadcom is a
bit of a painful project all in itself.

[Devon H. O'Dell]

It's not easy even if you make appliances and sell a good number of their
NICs. At a company where I worked a few years ago, we had a performance
problem and it took us months to get any datasheets. When that didn't help,
it took us about the same amount of time to get errata.

It is not fun.

--dho

Post by Tristan

Post by Jeffrey Green
So, a month has gone by and a slice of raspberry pi is looking more and
more tempting these days, especially since "official" delivery seems to
have happened last week. Has anyone yet chanced an introduction of one
to plan9? I would guess the initial booting would be the biggest
hurdle.

Not to stop anyone, but I hear getting documentation from Broadcom is a
bit of a painful project all in itself.

[Jeffrey Green]

It's not easy even if you make appliances and sell a good number of their NICs. At a company where I worked a few years ago, we had a performance problem and it took us months to get any datasheets. When that didn't help, it took us about the same amount of time to get errata.
It is not fun.

I'm assuming the proprietary stuff that is the hurdle here is a ROM based boot sequence (and language). I would think that the ARM processor architecture is standard. If so about the ROM, is the general public completely in the dark about it?

-jeff

Post by Jeffrey Green
So, a month has gone by and a slice of raspberry pi is looking more and
more tempting these days, especially since "official" delivery seems to
have happened last week. Has anyone yet chanced an introduction of one
to plan9? I would guess the initial booting would be the biggest
hurdle.

Not to stop anyone, but I hear getting documentation from Broadcom is a
bit of a painful project all in itself.

[Charles Forsyth]

I always hope to see things like this appearing as the McGuffin in films:
"The Broadcom Errata"
(``Look! I've decoded the cryptogram in the K&R Code. It seems to give the
location of a Broadcom data sheet.
We thought they'd all been lost or destroyed!'' ``If it also has the
errata, it would be priceless! That explains why they
had to kill Fletcher to shut up his open source project.")

[Jeff Sickel]

Sign me up as a reviewer for your next theatrical production. A little
radio, streaming audio, or even a youtube screening will suffice.

Post by Charles Forsyth
"The Broadcom Errata"
(``Look! I've decoded the cryptogram in the K&R Code. It seems to give the
location of a Broadcom data sheet.
We thought they'd all been lost or destroyed!'' ``If it also has the
errata, it would be priceless! That explains why they
had to kill Fletcher to shut up his open source project.")

[Devon H. O'Dell]

Glenda Python and the Search for the Holy Broadcom Specs

Post by Jeff Sickel
Sign me up as a reviewer for your next theatrical production. A little
radio, streaming audio, or even a youtube screening will suffice.

Post by Charles Forsyth
"The Broadcom Errata"
(``Look! I've decoded the cryptogram in the K&R Code. It seems to give

the

Post by Charles Forsyth
location of a Broadcom data sheet.
We thought they'd all been lost or destroyed!'' ``If it also has the
errata, it would be priceless! That explains why they
had to kill Fletcher to shut up his open source project.")

[Strake]

Post by Jeff Sickel
Sign me up as a reviewer for your next theatrical production. A little
radio, streaming audio, or even a youtube screening will suffice.

Post by Charles Forsyth
"The Broadcom Errata"
(``Look! I've decoded the cryptogram in the K&R Code. It seems to give the
location of a Broadcom data sheet.
We thought they'd all been lost or destroyed!'' ``If it also has the
errata, it would be priceless! That explains why they
had to kill Fletcher to shut up his open source project.")

I hope that 9fans will get the casting call.

[Joseph Stewart]

The whole Broadcom licensing thing is a major pain at my current job
(although my overlords probably have equally painful legal shackles).

Not being able to see data sheets is pretty lame.

-joe

Post by Strake

Post by Jeff Sickel
Sign me up as a reviewer for your next theatrical production. A little
radio, streaming audio, or even a youtube screening will suffice.

Post by Charles Forsyth
I always hope to see things like this appearing as the McGuffin in
"The Broadcom Errata"
(``Look! I've decoded the cryptogram in the K&R Code. It seems to give the
location of a Broadcom data sheet.
We thought they'd all been lost or destroyed!'' ``If it also has the
errata, it would be priceless! That explains why they
had to kill Fletcher to shut up his open source project.")

I hope that 9fans will get the casting call.

[Bruce Ellis]

"John Connor uses his 26th century technology to travel back in time,
insisting that Sarah's destiny will be thwarted if she does not take
the errata to the desert. They blow things up - not many dead. Sarah
latches onto a Cyborg open wifi and summons - a sequel."

Post by Joseph Stewart
The whole Broadcom licensing thing is a major pain at my current job
(although my overlords probably have equally painful legal shackles).
Not being able to see data sheets is pretty lame.
-joe

Post by Strake

Sign me up as a reviewer for your next theatrical production.  A little
radio, streaming audio, or even a youtube screening will suffice.

Post by Charles Forsyth
"The Broadcom Errata"
(``Look! I've decoded the cryptogram in the K&R Code. It seems to give the
location of a Broadcom data sheet.
We thought they'd all been lost or destroyed!'' ``If it also has the
errata, it would be priceless! That explains why they
had to kill Fletcher to shut up his open source project.")

I hope that 9fans will get the casting call.

[Jeffrey Green]

Post by Bruce Ellis
"John Connor uses his 26th century technology to travel back in time,
insisting that Sarah's destiny will be thwarted if she does not take
the errata to the desert. They blow things up - not many dead. Sarah
latches onto a Cyborg open wifi and summons - a sequel."

That may be a hard sell to Disney these days....

Post by Bruce Ellis

Post by Joseph Stewart
The whole Broadcom licensing thing is a major pain at my current job
(although my overlords probably have equally painful legal shackles).
Not being able to see data sheets is pretty lame.
-joe

Post by Strake

Post by Jeff Sickel
Sign me up as a reviewer for your next theatrical production. A little
radio, streaming audio, or even a youtube screening will suffice.

Post by Charles Forsyth
"The Broadcom Errata"
(``Look! I've decoded the cryptogram in the K&R Code. It seems to give the
location of a Broadcom data sheet.
We thought they'd all been lost or destroyed!'' ``If it also has the
errata, it would be priceless! That explains why they
had to kill Fletcher to shut up his open source project.")

I hope that 9fans will get the casting call.

--
Don't meddle in the mouth -- MVS (0416935147, +1-513-3BRUCEE)

[Matthew Veety]

Post by Jeffrey Green

Post by Bruce Ellis
"John Connor uses his 26th century technology to travel back in time,
insisting that Sarah's destiny will be thwarted if she does not take
the errata to the desert. They blow things up - not many dead. Sarah
latches onto a Cyborg open wifi and summons - a sequel."

That may be a hard sell to Disney these days....

Post by Bruce Ellis

Post by Joseph Stewart
The whole Broadcom licensing thing is a major pain at my current job
(although my overlords probably have equally painful legal shackles).
Not being able to see data sheets is pretty lame.
-joe

Post by Strake

Post by Jeff Sickel
Sign me up as a reviewer for your next theatrical production. A little
radio, streaming audio, or even a youtube screening will suffice.

Post by Charles Forsyth
"The Broadcom Errata"
(``Look! I've decoded the cryptogram in the K&R Code. It seems to

give

Post by Jeffrey Green

Post by Bruce Ellis

Post by Joseph Stewart

Post by Strake

Post by Jeff Sickel

Post by Charles Forsyth
the
location of a Broadcom data sheet.
We thought they'd all been lost or destroyed!'' ``If it also has the
errata, it would be priceless! That explains why they
had to kill Fletcher to shut up his open source project.")

I hope that 9fans will get the casting call.

--
Don't meddle in the mouth -- MVS (0416935147, +1-513-3BRUCEE)

nah it has everything Disney loves: time travel, shitty story, and an
instant sequal. Add some princesses and you're good to go.

--
Veety

[Bakul Shah]

Post by Jeffrey Green
I'm assuming the proprietary stuff that is the hurdle here is a ROM based boot sequence (and language). I would think that the ARM processor architecture is standard. If so about the ROM, is the general public completely in the dark about it?

There are is a binary containing the code that runs on the GPU; this is loaded by the boot loader on the GPU. Then there are libGLES.so and friends that link with your openGL ES Linux app. Not much different from what NVidia does. The "kernel" is also booted by the GPU. In some ways this is simpler. To allow kernel choice at run time, the GPU loaded "kernel" could be 9load or grub or something.

Linux driver to talk to the GPU is open source & CPU-GPU message types to implement a dumb frame buffer are documented so getting up /dev/draw shouldn't be hard.

There is a schematic for the board and a separate spec for peripherals - GPIO, UART, PWM, etc etc.

So a port should be no worse than to other ARM based SBCs. And once a port is done, you can have a ready to run SDHC card - no more fighting with installing plan9!