Getting a modern-ish Linux working on a Tilera CPU?

[tombert]

On a bit of a whim, I bought a used Tilera 72 Core box off eBay. I didn't realize until after I paid for it that it doesn't come with a hard drive.

I have dozens of hard drives, so that's not really a problem, except apparently it's designed to run its own specific version of Linux https://web.archive.org/web/20150418235429/http://www.tilera.com/products/?ezchip=592&spage=612

I am having a heck of a time finding a copy or image of this particular Linux. I found a Gentoo thread that seems to indicate that maybe someone got a vanilla kernel installed on there at some point. https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-981296-start-0.html

I realize that the kernel dropped support for Tilera a few years ago, but I would still like to be able to install something on there just to play with the 72-core machine, and I think I'm ok with just getting the latest supported kernel on there.

Problem is, I have no idea how to go about doing that! I am willing to spend basically any amount of time learning but I have absolutely no idea where to start. Should I compile an old version of Debian or something for the Tilera?

For that matter, I don't even think I need a full-on distro; I am not planning on using this as a daily driver, just something to do concurrent programming on, so I'm not really opposed to keeping this super lightweight...any ideas?

 

[osprey]

On a bit of a whim, I bought a used Tilera 72 Core box off eBay. I didn't realize until after I paid for it that it doesn't come with a hard drive.

I have dozens of hard drives, so that's not really a problem, except apparently it's designed to run its own specific version of Linux https://web.archive.org/web/20150418235429/http://www.tilera.com/products/?ezchip=592&spage=612

I am having a heck of a time finding a copy or image of this particular Linux. I found a Gentoo thread that seems to indicate that maybe someone got a vanilla kernel installed on there at some point. https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-981296-start-0.html

I realize that the kernel dropped support for Tilera a few years ago, but I would still like to be able to install something on there just to play with the 72-core machine, and I think I'm ok with just getting the latest supported kernel on there.

Problem is, I have no idea how to go about doing that! I am willing to spend basically any amount of time learning but I have absolutely no idea where to start. Should I compile an old version of Debian or something for the Tilera?

For that matter, I don't even think I need a full-on distro; I am not planning on using this as a daily driver, just something to do concurrent programming on, so I'm not really opposed to keeping this super lightweight...any ideas?

The description of the "software stack" in the first link you provided is:

Open source Linux 3.x distribution

However, a little digging suggests that the linux kernel dropped support for the TILE‑Gx architecture in June 2018. That means the final kernel series including TILE‑Gx support would have been released just before that removal.

While the exact version number isn't specified in the sources I found, the drop occurred around Linux kernel 4.16 or 4.17.

If you're working with TILE‑Gx hardware and need a supported kernel, you'd probably need to use Linux 4.16 or earlier, or much earlier, like a 3 kernel.

In relation to the company, MikroTik, that supported its routers using TILE‑Gx, I can't say more about their software or current status.

 

[tombert]

The description of the "software stack" in the first link you provided is:

However, a little digging suggests that the linux kernel dropped support for the TILE‑Gx architecture in June 2018. That means the final kernel series including TILE‑Gx support would have been released just before that removal.

While the exact version number isn't specified in the sources I found, the drop occurred around Linux kernel 4.16 or 4.17.

If you're working with TILE‑Gx hardware and need a supported kernel, you'd probably need to use Linux 4.16 or earlier, or much earlier, like a 3 kernel.

In relation to the company, MikroTik, that supported its routers using TILE‑Gx, I can't say more about their software or current status.

I'm totally fine running 4.16, at least to get started, but I'm not entirely sure where to start. I guess doing a linux from scratch thing?

 

[osprey]

I'm totally fine running 4.16, at least to get started, but I'm not entirely sure where to start. I guess doing a linux from scratch thing?

In post #1 you wrote: "Should I compile an old version of Debian or something for the Tilera?" Perhaps you've answered your own question there I think that's where I would start. I'd probably start with a 3 kernel to be more certain of TILE-Gx support, especially if it's just for programming.

If you have no linux experience at all, I guess there would be a reasonably steep learning curve, but there's endless help available that you would be able to access.

Looks like debian releases: wheezy, jessie and stretch, are reasonable candidates. The kernels in those releases range from 3.2 to 4.9. Perhaps check out debian archives.

 

[Brickwizard]

try one of the archive versions of Slackware or gentoo from around 2010 https://archive.org/details/slackware101

 

[KGIII]

I realize that the kernel dropped support for Tilera a few years ago, but I would still like to be able to install something on there just to play with the 72-core machine, and I think I'm ok with just getting the latest supported kernel on there.

An old computer will do the same tasks it was designed to do just as well as it did them when it was purchased, assuming it remains working. Sadly, that doesn't mean that old computers do modern tasks in anything close to an efficient manner.

You're probably stuck running an old OS on there (fortunately, good archives are out there so you might be able to find something) and you'll just have to enjoy doing those same tasks it was designed to do as though you're in that same era. They're not useful for modern activities and can't even browse the web due to missing instruction sets.

 

[tombert]

An old computer will do the same tasks it was designed to do just as well as it did them when it was purchased, assuming it remains working. Sadly, that doesn't mean that old computers do modern tasks in anything close to an efficient manner.

You're probably stuck running an old OS on there (fortunately, good archives are out there so you might be able to find something) and you'll just have to enjoy doing those same tasks it was designed to do as though you're in that same era. They're not useful for modern activities and can't even browse the web due to missing instruction sets.

In my case, this is just a toolkit to play with massively concurrent algorithms and experimenting with different types of concurrency. I'm pretty sure a computer from 2014 will do that well enough; I want to be able to spin up lots of "real" threads to test different types of contention.

Plus it's just fun to play with old hardware

 

[dos2unix]

Past Linux Support​

• Tilera TILE-Gx processors were supported in the mainline Linux kernel starting with version 2.6.36.
• These processors featured a VLIW RISC architecturewith up to 72 cores connected via a mesh network, and were used in high-performance networking equipment like MikroTik’s CCR1000 series routers.
• Linux kernel support included features like SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processing), and Tilera provided a Multicore Development Environment (MDE) for development.
• Linux kernel support for TILE-Gx was dropped in version 4.17 (June 2018)due to lack of maintenance and upstream interest.
• The discontinuation of TILE-Gx production by Nvidia in 2022 further cemented its status as a legacy architecture.
• Despite being dropped from mainline, MikroTik continues to support TILE-Gx out-of-treein its proprietary RouterOS Linux distribution.
• Enthusiasts and developers have been working to revive support via custom kernels. For example, a developer on the OpenWrt forum successfully booted a MikroTik CCR1009 (TILE-Gx based) using Linux kernels 3.3.5 and 4.14, and is experimenting with kernel 5.x and even 6.6.
• There’s also a GitHub repository (linux-tile) that contains legacy kernel code for Tilera TILE architecture

Index of /pub/archive/fedora/linux/releases/27/Workstation/x86_64/iso

Fedora 27 (way out of support now) supported the TileGx systems.

 

[KGIII]

I'm pretty sure a computer from 2014 will do that well enough

That's newer than I had expected. That should probably run something modern. You may be looking at doing some compiling and some time.

 

[tombert]

I actually put in a request for an order cancellation.

I'm skeptical that this device was "tested and confirmed working", because they aren't including a hard drive, I don't think they have a hard drive formatted to test that it actually works, and I don't want to have an expensive paperweight.

I don't know if my cancellation will be accepted, so if it isn't then I'll continue forward.

I managed to get a kernel building with the tilegx cross compiler, so I might be able to figure something out.