[oe] introducing a new architecture/machine; policy ? (and a question)

[Frans Meulenbroeks]

2010/6/20 Frans Meulenbroeks <fransmeulenbroeks at gmail.com>:
> Hi,
>
> I'm about to complete bringing a new architecture (nios2 with mmu) and
> machine (cyclone III FPGA starter kit, and maybe also the Nios2
> Embeddeded Evaluation Kit (aka neek)) to oe.
> Is there a policy on on the process how to do this.
>
> Changes are fairly localised:
> - add suport to binutils for the new architecture (currently based
> upon binutils 2.17.50.0.12)
> - add support to gcc for the new architecture (based upon gcc 4.1.2)
> - added a kernel recipe (and a linux-libc-headers recipe for 2.6.34)
> - some hardware specific changes to glibc 2.5
>
> And some smaller changes (e.g. adding the machines, adding the
> architecture to insane.bbclass and siteinfo.class, and a small patch
> or two on other recipes (mainly busybox)).
>
> Can I just commit these? It does not impact other architectures/machines.
> Patches are fairly big (because of the new files that contain the
> machine specific stuff), so posting them is impractical
> If someone wants to review I can also make a branch, but this is only
> useful if someone is actually going to review this (volunteers
> welcome).
>
> Please advise.
>
> Some concluding remarks:
> Only a minor part of the work is mine. Most comes from the nios2 git
> (git://sopc.et.ntust.edu.tw/git/toolchain-mmu.git). The stuff on that
> git is based upon a windriver version of the csl toolchain.
> My activity was mostly isolating the nios2 specific stuff and create
> patches for mainstream package versions.
> That is also the reason why it is based upon old versions of
> gcc/binutils/glibc: I didn't want to deviate too much from what is in
> the git.
>
> BTW: as nios2 is a programmable core, there may be different variants.
> So you need to program the board with the appropriate .sof file.
> The one I used for neek is the one found here:
> http://www.nioswiki.com/Try_out_without_compilation
> Should I put this sof file somewhere in the oe tree? No idea if this
> is legally ok, and no idea where to put it.
> Or should I put a reference somewhere? (and if so, where?)
>
> Suggestions welcome!
>
> Have fun! Frans
>
Oops. forgot one thing:

gcc for nios2 only seems to build on a 32 bit architecture. While
cross compling gcc on a 64 bit architecture gcc bails out with an
internal compilation error: segmentation fault.
(actually only tried on ubunti 10.04, 64 bit).
No idea yet on how to fix this. Moving to a different version of gcc
did not help.
Open to suggestions on how to fix this.

Frans