While there isn’t much new MIPS activity taking place due to other CPU architectures like RISC-V and LoongArch taking the interest away, the MIPS code within the Linux kernel does continue seeing enhancements as well as upstreaming of hardware that has long been relegated to downstream kernels.
The MIPS code merged on Friday for Linux 6.16 merges support for EcoNet MIPS platforms. EcoNet MIPS SoCs are found in various DSL and xPDN modems and are big endian 34Kc / 1004Kc MIPS processor designs. The upstreaming work for the Linux 6.16 kernel was focused on enabling EcoNet EN751221 and EN751627 family support.
The MIPS code for Linux 6.16 gets those EcoNet SoCs booting and also enables a SmartFiber XP8421-B developer/reference board for testing, which can be found on the likes of Alibaba for around $18.
That EcoNet MIPS support is now upstream in Linux 6.16. The MIPS pull request also brings another noteworthy change of now enabling parallel CPU bring-up for Mobileye EyeQ hardware.
