Linux Kernel Support For The Loongson-3

Lemote has published new Linux kernel patches for enabling the Loongson-3 processor support plus Loongson-3 based systems.

The Loongson-3, which is codenamed Goson-3, is a quad-core MIPS64-compatible CPU that runs at around 1.0GHz. The Loongson-3 is manufactured on a 65nm process and has a sub-15 Watt TDP. Eight and sixteen core versions of the Loongson-3 are also expected to be released in the future.

The Loongson CPUs are the product of China's Institute of Computing Technology and Chinese Academy of Sciences. Earlier versions of the Loongson were supported by Linux and an open-source toolchain with GCC and there's been work-in-progress support on the Loongson-3 for some time. The patches published today are in their seventh revision.

The Loongson-3 Linux support is published right now as patches on the mailing list as opposed to being pulled into the mainline tree already for Linux 3.7. It's unknown whether it will make this merge window, but seeing as it's still going through review in its v7 form, chances are it will be staved off until at least the Linux 3.8 kernel.

From today's patches, "Loongson-3 is a multi-core MIPS family CPU, it is MIPS64 compatible and has the same IMP field (0x6300) as Loongson-2. These patches make Linux kernel support Loongson-3 CPU and Loongson-3 based computers (including Laptop, Mini-ITX, All-In-One PC, etc.)"

The fixes for the v7 Loongson-3 machine patches are fixing a boot failure in a certain configuration, error messages after power-off and reboot, updating the default config file, and syncing the code with the latest upstream kernel code.

Back in June were Loongson-3A benchmarks on Debian Linux.