Re: [Etherboot-developers] Porting Etherboot to MIPS

[Ken Y. <ke...@nl...>]

>I am in the position where I need to use bootp to load a Linux kernel
>onto a diskless embedded system with a MIPS processor.  There seems to
>only be 2 main tools to do this: Etherboot and Netboot.  However, both
>only support the x86 architecture.  Since use of this type of tool is
>imperative to my project, I have decided to port Etherboot over to the
>MIPS architecture.  I have my own MIPS specific boot loader.  I am hoping
>that the boot loader is the only part of Etherboot that is x86 specific. 
>Is there any reason that I should not attempt to port this over to MIPS?

Only that you have enough hair on your head to start with. :-)

The architecture of Etherboot is shot through with x86isms, including:
the execution mechanism, the use of various memory areas, the hook into
the PCI subsystem, and others I've probably forgot. Portability for
Etherboot could not be achived in the past because there were no other
targets available to port to. Or desire to port. (Read: This is a hobby
project and x86 machines were all I could afford.) While I encourage you
to try, do not expect that it will be straightforward. Please feel free
to yell for clarification or help. It should be interesting at least to
know where the architecture dependencies are.