[ixp1200] Re: IXP1200 standalone

[Scott C. Karlin]

On Sun, Apr 14, 2002 at 09:24:31PM -0700, Charles Chiou wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have been trying the VERA package for IXP1200. I have a couple of
> questions and would really appreciate it if you could respond to them.
> 
> Now, I am trying to use the libraries to compile a standalone application
> instead of using a linux host to download. I compile using a big-endian
> arm cross-compiler. I am getting some errors in Libcii (fmt.c), as well as
> ethernet port initialization, and systimer and a few other initialization
> routines. Has anybody successfully compiled IPmm or others to run as a
> standalone (with cygmon as boot loader) in big-endian mode? Are there any
> firmware-specific or big/little-endian portion of the libraries that needs
> to be ported?

We chose little-endian for VERA for simplicity: IXP1200 powers up in
little-endian mode, the PCI bus is little-endian, and the Pentium is
little-endian.

That said, it shouldn't be too hard to make the libraries endian-agnostic
where they currently are not.  We have been writing the code with the idea
that someday we might consider running big-endian.  For now, it hasn't been
an issue for us.  Therefore, there are no-doubt places in the code which
assume little-endian and will need to be updated.  Dealing with the VERA
firmware/start-up code is trickier.  Sometime after powering-up into
little-endian mode, the IXP1200 will need to switch to big-endian mode.

As far as I know, no one has tried to get the VERA application code to
run using the stock IXP1200 firmware.

Scott