Hi, Zhangjin,

Thanks for the hardwork!

I just hope that after I settle down in US, I could have more time
to work on what I'd like to do, of course including LLC. :)

Google's recruiting process is too time consuming. :)


On 21:10 Sun 05 Dec     , wu zhangjin wrote:
> Hi, All
> 
> In our linux-loongson-community[1] project, Linux v2.6.37-rc4(master
> branch), v2.6.36.1, v2.6.35.9 are available for Loongson.
> 
> *Important Changes*
> 
> 1. v2.6.37-rc4 adds Gdium support
> 
> Most of the Gdium functions have been supported except the sound card
> and Hibernation/Suspend, a small defconfig with basic kernel options
> is added: arch/mips/configs/gdium_small_defconfig, If you need more
> kernel features, please refer to arch/mips/configs/lemote_defconfig
> and add them yourself.
> 
> This support is mainly based on the work of Yajin and Arnaud Patard,
> thanks to them.
> 
> 2. The above 3 versions applies the mainline "automated per session task 
> groups"
> 
> The mainline "automated per session task groups/autogroup" has
> improved the desktop response latency a lot, which is 'very very'
> important to our low-end Loongson machines, so, we backport and enable
> it by default.
> 
> It doesn't work with BFS and some discussion shows autogroup works
> well as BFS but it is more stable than BFS, so, we just disable BFS
> and enable autogroup instead.
> 
> 3. The above 3 versions appies "R4K Timer work with CPUFreq driver"
> 
> The CPUFreq driver didn't work well before 2.6.36. In 2.6.36,
> GangLiang added a new high resolution MFGPT Timer implementation to
> make CPUFreq driver works, but unfortunately, Shiwei Liu has reported,
> with the new MFGPT Timer implementation, the system time slower down
> about 12s per hour, the cause is the limitation of the 16bit count
> register(overflow quickly) and the low frequency(low resolution, only
> about 1/32 us) of the MFGPT Timer.
> 
> Now, based on the commit "Fix r4k clocksource and clockevent with
> cpufreq" from git://git.opensde.net/users/amery/linux-2.6.29-gdium",
> Some necessary cleanups & fixups has been added to make R4K Timer work
> very well with CPUFreq driver. As a result, we get a working CPUFreq
> driver and a stable system time, and therefore, from now on, to make
> CPUFreq driver work on Loongson machines, no need to driver an
> external Timer (except the persistent RTC Timer), this even save a
> hardware device.
> 
> 4. Fixes the building failure of the CPUFreq driver (reported by Mads
> <[email protected]>, thanks to him)
> 
> *Plan for future maintaining of the linux-loongson-community project*
> 
> I have been very tired to maintain a bunch of the old branches and
> with the continuous development of the mainline Linux, the number of
> the old branches will increase very quickly, so, I think, we must give
> up some out-of-date old branches and just let them stay in the git
> repository, when the people need it, just fetch it and pull the
> updates from the -stable git repo maintained by Greg K-H and the MIPS
> -stable branches maintained by Ralf[2].
> 
> I plan to only maintain some specific branches:
> 
> 1. The master branch
> 
> This branch must be maintained timely, otherwise, we may be impossible
> to follow the mainline development and some drivers may be broken by
> the changes of the kernel APIs.
> 
> Most of the new kernel versions has added some changes to the kernel
> APIs, so, the maintaining of this branch is time-consuming. Let's use
> the latest master branch as an example, I have fixed at least 5 bugs
> introduced by the mainline changes, most of them need several minutes
> or hours to debug and test.
> 
> And sometimes, some new Linux-Loongson specific bugs may be found and
> reported by some active users, which also should be fixed. e.g. Shiwei
> Liu just reported the slowdown problem of the system time in 2.6.36
> and I have spent at least 24 hours to make the R4K Timer to work
> normally with the CPUFreq driver.
> 
> And the support of some new boards may be added, for example, the
> basic support of Gdium has been added in this master branch.
> 
> After the patches in our master branches becomes stable, they should
> be pushed into the mainline, the time of upstream is uncertain, of
> course, it is also time consuming.
> 
> 2. The latest -stable branch
> 
> The latest -stable branch is the kernel version just older than the
> one in the master branch, currently, the version in our master branch
> is 2.6.37-rcX, the latest -stable branch is 2.6.36.
> 
> 3. The latest -longterm branch
> 
> The Linux community has made a plan to maintain a -longterm version of
> Linux, which is similar to the -stable version, but it may be
> maintained for longer. the 1st longterm version will be 2.6.35. so,
> this will also be maintained in our git repository.
> 
> So, from now on, in our linux-loongson-community, only 2.6.35, the
> latest -stable branch and the master branch will be maintained. For
> the generic users, 2.6.35 is recommended, but If you need more
> features, the latest stable branch is a better choice, currently, it
> is 2.6.36, but for the 'active' users, welcome to test the master
> branch and report bugs, then we can get a bug-less stable branch,
> thanks in advance ;-)
> 
> *Acknowledgement*
> 
> Thanks to Lemote for providing the Loongson machines to maintain this project.
> 
> Thanks to Shiwei Liu for maintaining a pre-installed Debian system
> with the latest stable Linux in
> http://www.bjlx.org.cn/loongson/install/.
> 
> 
> *More*
> 
> This project is maintained in the maintainers' off-hour without pay
> ;-) so, the response latency of the Emails and the release time of the
> -stable versions can not be guaranteed, please be patient.
> 
> If you have interest to play with this project, please access the
> homepage[1], there is a long TODO list, you can select one item,
> finish it and send patches to this mailing list. Of course, bug
> reports are welcome. and If you want to maintain this project together
> with us or want to maintain one of the branches, please also send an
> Email to this mailing list and CC to the maintainers.
> 
> Best Regards,
> Wu Zhangjin
> -----------
> [1] http://dev.lemote.com/code/linux-loongson-community
> [2] some steps to get a latest stable Linux for Loongson
> 
> 1. Fetch the branch from linux-loongson-community git repository
> (Maintained by me, Zhang Le and Alex)
> 
> // Init a local repo
> $ mkdir linux-loongson
> $ cd linux-loongson
> $ git init
> 
> // Fetch a stable branch from linux-loongson-community git repo
> $ git fetch git://dev.lemote.com/linux-loongson-community.git
> linux-2.6.xx-stable
> $ git checkout -b 2.6.xx FETCH_HEAD
> 
> 2. Pull the updates from the -stable git repo (Maintained by Greg K-H)
> 
> $ git pull 
> git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-2.6.xx.y.git
> 
> Note: You may get merge conflicts, please fix it before build it, If
> you can not fix it easily, post a question to this mailing list and
> add me into the CC: list. the same to the below pull.
> 
> 3. Pull the updates from Linux-mips git repo
> 
> $ git pull git://git.linux-mips.org/pub/scm/linux.git linux-2.6.26-stable
> 
> Now, you will get a latest stable Linux for Loongson, sometimes, you
> may need to get some fixups from the newer stable branches or the
> master branch in our git repository.

-- 
ZHANG, Le
http://zhangle.is-a-geek.org
0260 C902 B8F8 6506 6586 2B90 BC51 C808 1E4E 2973

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