OpenBSD on SGI: A Rollercoaster Story (opens in new tab)

(miod.online.fr)

85 pointsbrynet21d ago10 comments

10 comments

That was a pretty epic story. I'll admit that I skimmed a few parts. :)

Sad that it's discontinued, but mostly it's remarkable that so much was done by so few people.

Very interesting story.

I used to regularly visit SGI documentation due to OpenGL/IrisGL, Inventor, and the original HP STL C++ documentation that SGI hosted, and naturally dive into Irix documentation in boring days.

fleeno20d ago

I wish it was still supported, but I'm sure I was one of very few that was actually using it! Even then it was just for fun.

brynetOP20d ago

There is someone on GitHub who's been trying to keep OpenBSD/sgi alive out-of-tree using bits and pieces (e.g: userland binaries) of OpenBSD/octeon, which remains supported.

https://github.com/the-machine-hall/openbsd-sgi

fleeno20d ago

Thanks, that looks promising!

lproven20d ago

As I understand it, Loongson is very close to MIPS. I think I remember reading that just 4 patented instructions were removed from the MIPS ISA, and I am not even sure that they were replaced.

If so, that means that new MIPS-family hardware is being made today. And ISTM that represents a new target market or audience for this.

brynetOP20d ago

AFAIK Loongson is dead and isn't made anymore, and unlike OpenBSD/sgi, Loongson was a little-endian arch. OpenBSD/octeon is a closer match, but also discontinued as Cavium switched to making ARM CPUs.

LoongArch is a new ISA and isn't MIPS compatible, and OpenBSD doesn't support it.

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10 comments

justin6621d ago

That was a pretty epic story. I'll admit that I skimmed a few parts. :)

Sad that it's discontinued, but mostly it's remarkable that so much was done by so few people.

pjmlp21d ago

Very interesting story.

I used to regularly visit SGI documentation due to OpenGL/IrisGL, Inventor, and the original HP STL C++ documentation that SGI hosted, and naturally dive into Irix documentation in boring days.

fleeno20d ago

I wish it was still supported, but I'm sure I was one of very few that was actually using it! Even then it was just for fun.

brynetOP20d ago

There is someone on GitHub who's been trying to keep OpenBSD/sgi alive out-of-tree using bits and pieces (e.g: userland binaries) of OpenBSD/octeon, which remains supported.

https://github.com/the-machine-hall/openbsd-sgi

fleeno20d ago

Thanks, that looks promising!

lproven20d ago

As I understand it, Loongson is very close to MIPS. I think I remember reading that just 4 patented instructions were removed from the MIPS ISA, and I am not even sure that they were replaced.

If so, that means that new MIPS-family hardware is being made today. And ISTM that represents a new target market or audience for this.

brynetOP20d ago

LoongArch is a new ISA and isn't MIPS compatible, and OpenBSD doesn't support it.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse