Support for the Texas Instruments AR7 System-on-a-Chip family: TNETD7100, 7200 and 7300.
The eXcite is a smart camera platform manufactured by Basler Vision Technologies AG.
Support for BCM47XX based boards
Support for BCM63XX based boards
This enables support for DEC's MIPS based workstations. For details see the Linux/MIPS FAQ on <http://www.linux-mips.org/> and the DECstation porting pages on <http://decstation.unix-ag.org/>. If you have one of the following DECstation Models you definitely want to choose R4xx0 for the CPU Type: DECstation 5000/50 DECstation 5000/150 DECstation 5000/260 DECsystem 5900/260 otherwise choose R3000.
This a family of machines based on the MIPS R4030 chipset which was used by several vendors to build RISC/os and Windows NT workstations. Members include the Acer PICA, MIPS Magnum 4000, MIPS Millennium and Olivetti M700-10 workstations.
This enables the support of Loongson family of machines. Loongson is a family of general-purpose MIPS-compatible CPUs. developed at Institute of Computing Technology (ICT), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in the People's Republic of China. The chief architect is Professor Weiwu Hu.
This enables support for the MIPS Technologies Malta evaluation board.
This option enables support for MIPS Technologies MIPSsim software emulator.
This enables support for the NEC Electronics Mark-eins boards.
Support for NXP Semiconductors STB220 Development Board.
Support for NXP Semiconductors STB225 Development Board.
This adds support for the PMC-Sierra family of Multi-Service Processor System-On-A-Chips. These parts include a number of integrated peripherals, interfaces and DSPs in addition to a variety of MIPS cores.
Yosemite is an evaluation board for the RM9000x2 processor manufactured by PMC-Sierra.
This are the SGI Indy, Challenge S and Indigo2, as well as certain OEM variants like the Tandem CMN B006S. To compile a Linux kernel that runs on these, say Y here.
This are the SGI Origin 200, Origin 2000 and Onyx 2 Graphics workstations. To compile a Linux kernel that runs on these, say Y here.
This is the SGI Indigo2 with R10000 processor. To compile a Linux kernel that runs on these, say Y here.
If you want this kernel to run on SGI O2 workstation, say Y here.
The SNI RM200/300/400 are MIPS-based machines manufactured by Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme (SNI), parent company of Pyramid Technology and now in turn merged with Fujitsu. Say Y here to support this machine type.
Support the Mikrotik(tm) RouterBoard 532 series, based on the IDT RC32434 SoC.
This enables support for the Wind River MIPS32 4KC PPMC evaluation board, which is based on GT64120 bridge chip.
The Octeon simulator is software performance model of the Cavium Octeon Processor. It supports simulating Octeon processors on x86 hardware.
This option supports all of the Octeon reference boards from Cavium Networks. It builds a kernel that dynamically determines the Octeon CPU type and supports all known board reference implementations. Some of the supported boards are: EBT3000 EBH3000 EBH3100 Thunder Kodama Hikari Say Y here for most Octeon reference boards.
This option enables special console drivers which allow the kernel to print messages very early in the bootup process. This is useful for kernel debugging when your machine crashes very early before the console code is initialized. For normal operation, it is not recommended because it looks ugly on some machines and doesn't cooperate with an X server. You should normally say N here, unless you want to debug such a crash.
Say Y here to allow turning CPUs off and on. CPUs can be controlled through /sys/devices/system/cpu. (Note: power management support will enable this option automatically on SMP systems. ) Say N if you want to disable CPU hotplug.
Some MIPS machines can be configured for either little or big endian byte order. These modes require different kernels and a different Linux distribution. In general there is one preferred byteorder for a particular system but some systems are just as commonly used in the one or the other endianness.
The Loongson 2E processor implements the MIPS III instruction set with many extensions.
Choose this option to build a kernel for release 1 or later of the MIPS32 architecture. Most modern embedded systems with a 32-bit MIPS processor are based on a MIPS32 processor. If you know the specific type of processor in your system, choose those that one otherwise CPU_MIPS32_R1 is a safe bet for any MIPS32 system. Release 2 of the MIPS32 architecture is available since several years so chances are you even have a MIPS32 Release 2 processor in which case you should choose CPU_MIPS32_R2 instead for better performance.
Choose this option to build a kernel for release 2 or later of the MIPS32 architecture. Most modern embedded systems with a 32-bit MIPS processor are based on a MIPS32 processor. If you know the specific type of processor in your system, choose those that one otherwise CPU_MIPS32_R1 is a safe bet for any MIPS32 system.
Choose this option to build a kernel for release 1 or later of the MIPS64 architecture. Many modern embedded systems with a 64-bit MIPS processor are based on a MIPS64 processor. If you know the specific type of processor in your system, choose those that one otherwise CPU_MIPS64_R1 is a safe bet for any MIPS64 system. Release 2 of the MIPS64 architecture is available since several years so chances are you even have a MIPS64 Release 2 processor in which case you should choose CPU_MIPS64_R2 instead for better performance.
Choose this option to build a kernel for release 2 or later of the MIPS64 architecture. Many modern embedded systems with a 64-bit MIPS processor are based on a MIPS64 processor. If you know the specific type of processor in your system, choose those that one otherwise CPU_MIPS64_R1 is a safe bet for any MIPS64 system.
Please make sure to pick the right CPU type. Linux/MIPS is not designed to be generic, i.e. Kernels compiled for R3000 CPUs will *not* work on R4000 machines and vice versa. However, since most of the supported machines have an R4000 (or similar) CPU, R4x00 might be a safe bet. If the resulting kernel does not work, try to recompile with R3000.
The options selects support for the NEC VR4100 series of processors. Only choose this option if you have one of these processors as a kernel built with this option will not run on any other type of processor or vice versa.
MIPS Technologies R4300-series processors.
MIPS Technologies R4000-series processors other than 4300, including the R4000, R4400, R4600, and 4700.
MIPS Technologies R5000-series processors other than the Nevada.
NEC VR5500 and VR5500A series processors implement 64-bit MIPS IV instruction set.
MIPS Technologies R6000 and R6000A series processors. Note these processors are extremely rare and the support for them is incomplete.
QED / PMC-Sierra RM52xx-series ("Nevada") processors.
MIPS Technologies R8000 processors. Note these processors are uncommon and the support for them is incomplete.
MIPS Technologies R10000-series processors.
The Cavium Octeon processor is a highly integrated chip containing many ethernet hardware widgets for networking tasks. The processor can have up to 16 Mips64v2 cores and 8 integrated gigabit ethernets. Full details can be found at http://www.caviumnetworks.com.
You should only select this option if you have a workload that actually benefits from 64-bit processing or if your machine has large memory. You will only be presented a single option in this menu if your system does not support both 32-bit and 64-bit kernels.
Select this option if you want to build a 32-bit kernel.
Select this option if you want to build a 64-bit kernel.
This option select the standard 4kB Linux page size. On some R3000-family processors this is the only available page size. Using 4kB page size will minimize memory consumption and is therefore recommended for low memory systems.
Using 8kB page size will result in higher performance kernel at the price of higher memory consumption. This option is available only on R8000 and cnMIPS processors. Note that you will need a suitable Linux distribution to support this.
Using 16kB page size will result in higher performance kernel at the price of higher memory consumption. This option is available on all non-R3000 family processors. Note that you will need a suitable Linux distribution to support this.
Using 32kB page size will result in higher performance kernel at the price of higher memory consumption. This option is available only on cnMIPS cores. Note that you will need a suitable Linux distribution to support this.
Using 64kB page size will result in higher performance kernel at the price of higher memory consumption. This option is available on all non-R3000 family processor. Not that at the time of this writing this option is still high experimental.
Instead of using the CPU to zero and copy pages, use a Data Mover channel. These DMA channels are otherwise unused by the standard SiByte Linux port. Seems to give a small performance benefit.
Use this option if your workload can't take advantage of MIPS hardware multithreading support. On systems that don't have the option of an MT-enabled processor this option will be the only option in this menu.
This is a kernel model which is also known a VSMP or lately has been marketesed into SMVP.
This is a kernel model which is known a SMTC or lately has been marketesed into SMVP.
SMT scheduler support improves the CPU scheduler's decision making when dealing with MIPS MT enabled cores at a cost of slightly increased overhead in some places. If unsure say N here.
Includes a loader for loading an elf relocatable object onto another VPE and running it.
To support multiple TC microthreads acting as "CPUs" within a VPE, VPE-wide interrupt mask bits must be specially manipulated during interrupt handling. To support legacy drivers and interrupt controller management code, SMTC has a "backstop" to track and if necessary restore the interrupt mask. This has some performance impact on interrupt service overhead.
Enables SMP IRQ affinity API (/proc/irq/*/smp_affinity, etc.) for SMTC Linux kernel. Requires platform support, of which an example can be found in the MIPS kernel i8259 and Malta platform code. Adds some overhead to interrupt dispatch, and should be used only if you know what you are doing.
The loader can use memory that is present but has been hidden from Linux using the kernel command line option "mem=xxMB". It's up to you to ensure the amount you put in the option and the space your program requires is less or equal to the amount physically present.
KSPD is a kernel daemon that accepts syscall requests from the SP side, actions them and returns the results. It also handles the "exit" syscall notifying other kernel modules the SP program is exiting. You probably want to say yes here.
This is a placeholder option for the GCMP work. It will need to be handled differently...
SmartMIPS is a extension of the MIPS32 architecture aimed at increased security at both hardware and software level for smartcards. Enabling this option will allow proper use of the SmartMIPS instructions by Linux applications. However a kernel with this option will not work on a MIPS core without SmartMIPS core. If you don't know you probably don't have SmartMIPS and should say N here.
Say Y to support efficient handling of discontiguous physical memory, for architectures which are either NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) or have huge holes in the physical address space for other reasons. See <file:Documentation/vm/numa> for more.
Say Y to compile the kernel to support NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access). This option improves performance on systems with more than two nodes; on two node systems it is generally better to leave it disabled; on single node systems disable this option disabled.
This enables support for systems with more than one CPU. If you have a system with only one CPU, like most personal computers, say N. If you have a system with more than one CPU, say Y. If you say N here, the kernel will run on single and multiprocessor machines, but will use only one CPU of a multiprocessor machine. If you say Y here, the kernel will run on many, but not all, singleprocessor machines. On a singleprocessor machine, the kernel will run faster if you say N here. People using multiprocessor machines who say Y here should also say Y to "Enhanced Real Time Clock Support", below. See also the SMP-HOWTO available at <http://www.tldp.org/docs.html#howto>. If you don't know what to do here, say N.
This allows you to specify the maximum number of CPUs which this kernel will support. The maximum supported value is 32 for 32-bit kernel and 64 for 64-bit kernels; the minimum value which makes sense is 1 for Qemu (useful only for kernel debugging purposes) and 2 for all others. This is purely to save memory - each supported CPU adds approximately eight kilobytes to the kernel image. For best performance should round up your number of processors to the next power of two.
Allows the configuration of the timer frequency. config HZ_48 bool "48 HZ" if SYS_SUPPORTS_48HZ || SYS_SUPPORTS_ARBIT_HZ config HZ_100 bool "100 HZ" if SYS_SUPPORTS_100HZ || SYS_SUPPORTS_ARBIT_HZ config HZ_128 bool "128 HZ" if SYS_SUPPORTS_128HZ || SYS_SUPPORTS_ARBIT_HZ config HZ_250 bool "250 HZ" if SYS_SUPPORTS_250HZ || SYS_SUPPORTS_ARBIT_HZ config HZ_256 bool "256 HZ" if SYS_SUPPORTS_256HZ || SYS_SUPPORTS_ARBIT_HZ config HZ_1000 bool "1000 HZ" if SYS_SUPPORTS_1000HZ || SYS_SUPPORTS_ARBIT_HZ config HZ_1024 bool "1024 HZ" if SYS_SUPPORTS_1024HZ || SYS_SUPPORTS_ARBIT_HZ
MIPS R10000 does support a 44 bit / 16TB address space as opposed to previous 64-bit processors which only supported 40 bit / 1TB. If you need processes of more than 1TB virtual address space, say Y here. This will result in additional memory usage, so it is not recommended for normal users.
kexec is a system call that implements the ability to shutdown your current kernel, and to start another kernel. It is like a reboot but it is independent of the system firmware. And like a reboot you can start any kernel with it, not just Linux. The name comes from the similarity to the exec system call. It is an ongoing process to be certain the hardware in a machine is properly shutdown, so do not be surprised if this code does not initially work for you. It may help to enable device hotplugging support. As of this writing the exact hardware interface is strongly in flux, so no good recommendation can be made.
This kernel feature is useful for number crunching applications that may need to compute untrusted bytecode during their execution. By using pipes or other transports made available to the process as file descriptors supporting the read/write syscalls, it's possible to isolate those applications in their own address space using seccomp. Once seccomp is enabled via /proc/<pid>/seccomp, it cannot be disabled and the task is only allowed to execute a few safe syscalls defined by each seccomp mode. If unsure, say Y. Only embedded should say N here.
Probe initrd header at the last page of kernel image. Say Y here if you are using arch/mips/boot/addinitrd.c to add initrd or initramfs image to the kernel image. Otherwise, say N.
Find out whether you have a PCI motherboard. PCI is the name of a bus system, i.e. the way the CPU talks to the other stuff inside your box. Other bus systems are ISA, EISA, or VESA. If you have PCI, say Y, otherwise N.
The Extended Industry Standard Architecture (EISA) bus was developed as an open alternative to the IBM MicroChannel bus. The EISA bus provided some of the features of the IBM MicroChannel bus while maintaining backward compatibility with cards made for the older ISA bus. The EISA bus saw limited use between 1988 and 1995 when it was made obsolete by the PCI bus. Say Y here if you are building a kernel for an EISA-based machine. Otherwise, say N.
TurboChannel is a DEC (now Compaq (now HP)) bus for Alpha and MIPS processors. Documentation on writing device drivers for TurboChannel is available at: <http://www.cs.arizona.edu/computer.help/policy/DIGITAL_unix/AA-PS3HD-TET1_html/TITLE.html>.
Select this option if you want Linux/MIPS 32-bit binary compatibility. Since all software available for Linux/MIPS is currently 32-bit you should say Y here.
Select this option if you want to run o32 binaries. These are pure 32-bit binaries as used by the 32-bit Linux/MIPS port. Most of existing binaries are in this format. If unsure, say Y.
Select this option if you want to run n32 binaries. These are 64-bit binaries using 32-bit quantities for addressing and certain data that would normally be 64-bit. They are used in special cases. If unsure, say N.