Linux on the Jornada 720 - Status

Hi,

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is BX ?

Thanks,

Mark

Seems like it has something to do with Thumb code.
I have no idea what it is really, but:

This thread came up after searching.
https://groups.google.com/g/linux.debian.ports.arm/c/lbvmPvA6_2k/m/1...

After skimming, it seems it is a BX instruction emulation for ARMv4 / other ARM.
I'm sure somebody else than me knows much better.

More technical stuff:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27084857/what-does-bx-lr-do-in-a...


Edited by stingraze 2021-10-07 2:23 PM

BX (and variants) is a type of branch instruction that was added to the ARM hardware ion ARMv4T and ARMv5. Since our beloved Jornada runs on an ARMv4 CPU (StrongARM v1110) this instruction is not present in hardware. Therefore the two options you have are either: 1. emulate the BX instruction on the Linux kernel using other instructions in place that will have the same behavior, or 2. patch BX instruction replacing it with equivalent instructions (that's what I believe Stefan is doing).

Thanks for the info....

So, is there a benefit in device performance with BX or ?

There is benefit for the CPUs that implement it in hardware. In our case, it is actually worse to run software that implement these instructions because our CPU does not have those instructions, so they need to be emulated (which requires a kernel trap - very time consuming) or patched. For our jornadas it would be best if software were compiled without BX instructions, but I don’t think anyone in here wants to recompile the entire Debian/Devuan package base, right?

Thanks, ntware, for the detailed explanation.

So, I assume the benefit for CPU's is that they perform faster/better?


And yes, I don't want to recompile the entire Debian/Devuan package.....

Hello! Thanks for the explanations.

As mentioned in my first Linux post: The problem is that ARMv4 CPUs like the SA-1110 have no BX instruction, which are only available on newer ARMv4t CPUs. So you can not run any newer userland like Debian armel. So we have to emulate/patch this instruction to be able to run Debian/Devuan. This is ugly - but as ntware wrote, no one would be happy recompiling the whole world for our ARMv4 CPU

The old Kernel always emulated the BX instruction. With the newer Kernel you are able to switch between emulating or patching it.

Regards
Stefan

Thanks, Stefan.....

Always learn a lot from you, ntware, stingraze, etc....

Keep up the great work!

Best,

Mark