[Barrelfish-users] Barrelfish-users Digest, Vol 33, Issue 2

[Kornilios Kourtis]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for your input! I'm inlining some responses below.

On Fri, Nov 09, 2012 at 02:44:59PM +0000, Matt Horsnell wrote:
> I think Zeus, currently interning with us at ARM, will follow up with a
> more informed email detailing some of the issues we've identified in
> trying to get the barrelfish tip running on the gem5 tip.
>
> My personal input would be to try and persuade you to settle on
> supporting the Versatile Express EMM platform as the basis for the gem5
> port. This is the default platform ARM is currently supporting through
> our efforts with gem5 and it is likely to remain the most stable going
> forward. As a reference point this will also give you the ability to
> make comparisons directly to Linux/Android (those kernels being
> actively maintained by ARM and Linaro for EMM).

That's very useful to know! I haven't look at the details of the EMM
platform, but having a stable gem5 arm platform with a maintained linux
port would be really useful. Hopefully, it would help us avoid depending
on a particular gem5 version as is now the case.

> In terms of actual hardware that is a political decision best left to
> the community. I know you guys are already using the Pandaboards and
> that there are a number of other relatively cheap platforms available
> (Samsung's Arndale board being a recent example). A good guide
> explaining how you would go about porting the OS to another board would
> probably be more useful than supporting more than one board.
>
> As mentioned in the past, I am happy to help/facilitate/support where I
> can,

One thing that might make sense is to try to merge fixes/updates from
your barrelfish project to the main barrelfish tree. I understand that
this is not always easy, but it might worth a try :-) We'd be happy to
help with any such efforts.

cheers,
Kornilios.

-- 
Kornilios Kourtis