[Glibc-bsd-devel] ia64 donation for GNU/KFreeBSD

[Bdale Garbee]

Jordi Mallach <jordi@debian.org> writes:

> On Thu, Oct 02, 2003 at 02:33:31PM +0000, Robert Millan wrote:
>> > > I believe we should run i386-kfreebsd-gnu on that box and use jails for
>> > > ia64 porting efforts as Nathan suggested.
>> > ia64 cannot run ia32 code that I know.
>> The CPU ships with ia32 emulation IIRC.
>
> That's AMD's 64bit thing. Bdale has Intel Itaniums, which is different
> (and is a pure 64bit processor).

The Itanium series can run ia32 Linux binaries once it's running an ia64 Linux
kernel and rest of userspace, but you can't just run an ia32 operating system
on an ia64 system. 

My primary goal is to increase overall interest in the ia64 architecture in 
the free software world.  A secondary goal is to see the BSD kernel work for
Debian expanded to more than one architecture.

I suggest that anyone wanting to wrap their minds around the ia64 architecture
and related porting issues pick up a copy of the Mosberger and Eranian book
on the ia64 Linux kernel.  It's not cheap, but it explains the decisions that
were made in a way that's like to help with other OS ports to ia64.

Bdale