OpenBSD/loongson is still alive

https://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/6.5/loongson/

by katzeilla • 7 years ago

76 32 7 years ago

ftp.openbsd.org

phsource• 7 years ago

I didn't realize the significance of this, but searched a bit more, and found this:

OpenBSD/loongson is a port intended to run on systems based upon the Loongson (also known as Godson) 2E and 2F MIPS-compatible processors, using the PMON firmware and boot loader
...
Supported hardware:
Lemote Yeeloong netbook [1]

The Lemote Yeeloong rang a bell, since it's one of the few computers that's "built on free software from the BIOS up" that was recommended by Richard Stallman [2]. Glad the effort to run this is still going strong and supporting the latest version of OpenBSD, released in May!

[1] https://www.openbsd.org/loongson.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemote

Fnoord2• 7 years ago

Stallman's Lemote Yeelong got stolen while on a business trip. He has not been able to replace it with the same model because no longer made / sold out, so he is using a less free laptop now (forgot which, and might've changed).

jraph• 7 years ago

It seems he is using a Thinkpad T400s computer with Libreboot [1] endorsed by the FSF.

[1] https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

Mediterraneo10• 7 years ago

Stallman's Lemote Yeelong got stolen while on a business trip.

Interesting, I never heard that story before. Did he use full-disk encryption? One could presume that Stallman has signing keys for some GNU projects, so wouldn't the loss of his personal computer represent a major security issue?

INTPenis• 7 years ago

Aww I wish I had known. I actually gave my lemote laptop away becauee it was just gathering dust. Would have proudly given him mine.

PedroBatista• 7 years ago

A Surface Pro? :)

ajxs5• 7 years ago

I read a little bit about this a while ago. Is there still a way to buy these? I've heard great things about systems development on the MIPS platform but haven't had a great reason to invest myself in learning the architecture. Any opinions from others on that subject would be appreciated too. I missed the boat with the Imgtec Creator CI20 board, unfortunately. Does anyone know of any other Linux capable MIPS development boards on the market?

ajxs5• 7 years ago

It looks like the CI20 is still available from one retailer at least: http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/products/1253305/ Quite expensive though.

goatinaboat• 7 years ago

Imgtec was acquired by Chinese investors, ironically a condition of the sale required by the US was that they sell off MIPS.

delroth• 7 years ago

One option is to get one of the many OpenWRT compatible routers -- something like 80% of them will run on a MIPS CPU (though the trend is starting to switch to ARM for more recent platforms). That's how I got started with MIPS development several years ago.

Or if you want to go less standard (e.g. won't run Linux), get a modded PlayStation 1 :-)

jchw2• 7 years ago

Hey, technically, a stock PS2 can run Linux, and that’s still MIPS.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2

ajxs5• 7 years ago

I've thought about the router suggestion! The PlayStation idea is a great one I didn't think of! It looks like there's a great variety of devices running with MIPS CPUs. I was more specifically looking for a system capable of more traditional computing, but I definitely plan to take a look at smaller scale MIPS devices. How do you find embedded development for MIPS compared to ARM and RISC-V? I'm interested after hearing from people that it's a much better architecture, though I can't validate that for myself yet.

voltagex_• 7 years ago

https://vocore.io maybe?

ajxs5• 7 years ago

Very cool!

sigjuice2• 7 years ago

Here are a couple

https://www.8devices.com/products/carambola-2

https://onion.io

ajxs5• 7 years ago

Thanks for the resources. You'd be shocked how little you can find with a quick search for 'MIPS development board'.

verisimilitudes• 7 years ago

I thought this was obvious, but that's only because I use a Lemote Yeeloong with OpenBSD, because it's the only maintained system that's simple to install. I'm not much for Gentoo.

One issue I ran into was no pre-built packages for newer releases, so when I updated to 6.5 I had to downgrade to 6.3 to get any packages. Sans that, it's also unfortunate that Common Lisp implementations don't tend to support a MIPS that isn't under GNU/Linux; the GNAT compiler for Ada also isn't available. I can get GNU APL though, so that's nice.

Since some are wondering, I bought mine about eight years back for a few hundred dollars and even back then the website that supplied mine soon ran out of stock.

This article has reminded me that I'd intended to make pictures and descriptions of my Lemote Yeeloong available on my website months back, which is a great option for my 2019-09-09 article, so I'll do so.

Owning this machine has been a nice way to not use x86(_64) for everything and it's made me intent on my software working properly on less common machines and operating systems. My choices of language have likely already betrayed that, but I eventually intend to write implementations of my own and I'll ensure my Lemote Yeeloong is well supported. I also must remember that OpenBSD may not support it forever, although I could perhaps take over if it's ever necessary.

I could write more concerning this, but this seems sufficient.

jtl999• 7 years ago

I'd be interested in the article.

katzeilla• 7 years ago

The good news is, pre-built packages for latest release(6.5) are available now!

https://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/6.5/packages/mips64el/

rjsw• 7 years ago

Making SBCL work on non-Linux systems isn't usually very much work.

snvzz• 7 years ago

So is netbsd/m68k.

I am unsure what your point is.

jaykru• 7 years ago

I've used this for some time on a yeelong hosting my personal website dank.systems (currently down due to an issue with the colo). The base system is in excellent working order, though some of the ports are broken on loongson in my experience.

OpenBSD/loongson is still alive

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