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WEEKLY REPORTS

Here you will find information on the current state of the development effort. It will be updated periodically and will give you a snapshot of the current state of Linux on the PA-RISC. For more information on the current state of the PA-RISC project see Status Reports and check out our list of Contributors.


Current Report

2000 Report Archive

1999 Report Archive


 

1999 REPORT ARCHIVE

November 25, 1999
News & Announcements
This Week's CVS Activity
PA-RISC/Linux Developer Profile (David Kennedy)
State of the Port Summary

News & Announcements
PA-RISC/Linux Bonsai now online!
The Puffin Group has implemented a Bonsai system for the PA-RISC/Linux porting project. Bonsai is a query interface to the CVS source repository, which you can access through:
http://puffin.external.hp.com/bonsai/rview.cgi
Hewlett-Packard releases SOM linker code

Hewlett-Packard, in co-operation with The Puffin Group, is releasing the source code to its SOM linker product. This release is an important step in the project to port Linux to the PA-RISC architecture, as it will eventually allow developers to more easily test their work.

32-bit versions of the HP/UX operating system use a proprietary SOM (Spectrum Object Model) binary format to load executables, making it a natural choice as an object format for early PA-RISC/Linux. Until now, there was no way to generate a SOM binary except by using HP/UX tools, which prevented developers from building on any other platform. Once the port of the linker is complete, developers will be able to build from a variety of platforms, taking advantage of more computing power, and reducing the amount of time that it takes to test new code.

Hewlett-Packard, adding to their extensive list of Linux-related projects, has made the linker available under the GNU General Public License, making it freely modifiable and redistributable. However, though Hewlett-Packard encourages developers to extend and port their linker, they do not guarantee that community modifications will be re-integrated into their official product.

Although the linker does not yet produce functional binaries, developers and curious hackers are invited to browse the source and commit patches. HP's official release, as well as future snapshots, can be obtained via FTP from ftp://puffin.external.hp.com/pub/parisc/linker, or from the Puffin Group's CVS server. More information regarding CVS can be found at http://www.thepuffingroup.com/parisc/cvs.html. Questions about the SOM linker can be directed to linker-info@thepuffingroup.com.

PA-RISC/Linux Hardware Database now available
To help developers solve the eternal "will this box run Linux?" question, The Puffin Group has made available a database of PA-RISC hardware. This database describes the different hardware and machine configurations that are available.
Testers are encouraged to add their own hardware information to the database:
http://www.thepuffingroup.com/parisc/hw.html.
Linux developers get L2000 machine for PA2.0 development
In order to further development of Linux on PA2.0 hardware, The Puffin Group accepted deliver of an L2000 HP system that will be shared for PA-RISC/Linux development work.
PA-RISC/Linux Hackers invade Bremen!
Perhaps "invade" is a bit strong a word for it, but Alan Cox, Matthew Wilcox, Martin Petersen, and Philip Rumpf are all going to be at the LinuxTag conference in Bremen this weekend. There's a good chance that some random hacking could erupt, as Matthew is apparently taking his 715 with him on the trip, single-handedly redefining the whole concept of a "portable computer". The conference page is here:
http://linux.inbremen.de

This Week's CVS Activity
Alan Cox merged in the kernel 2.2.12 UFS changes.
Phillip Rumpf made numerous changes to cache code.
Grant Grundler improved the build system through a variety of fixes.

PA-RISC/Linux Developer Profile
David "Spud" Kennedy

Email: dkennedy@thepuffingroup.com
Homepage: http://www.engsoc.carleton.ca/~dkennedy
Favourite colour: Blue.
Current age:23.
Current location: Ottawa, Canada.

Q: What's your current workplace/job:

DLK: Senior Linux Consultant at The Puffin Group.

Q: Why did you decide to contribute to the PA-RISC/Linux porting project?

DLK: We have a lot of cool hardware lying around The Puffin Group offices, and I would just like to see Linux running on it.

Q: What parts of the port have you worked on so far?

DLK: Hardware detection code, some SCSI stuff.

Q: What do you think is your most significant contribution to date?

DLK: I brought Grant Grundler coffee once.

Q: What bits of the port are you interested in working on the the future?

DLK: Probably some memory management stuff.

As an aside, it should also be known that Dave also developed the backend to the new PA-RISC/Linux Hardware Database (see "News & Announcements" above.


State of the Port Summary
Kernel: based on 2.2.13
Supported Machines:
most of the A180c, parts of 712 Gecko workstations
Supported Hardware:
SCSI, Lan and PS/2 on Lasi I/O controller, Dino PCI, Tulip ethernet
Project Page:
http://www.thepuffingroup.com/parisc/
Latest Workable Image:
ftp://puffin.external.hp.com/pub/parisc/linux-2.2.13.gz
Running PA-RISC/Linux "recipe":
http://thepuffingroup.com/parisc/recipe.html
Page last modified on 2000-02-29