Fedora ARM Secondary Architecture

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Revision as of 17:01, 24 April 2010 by Chris Tyler (talk | contribs) (Status)
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Introduction

Fedora Secondary Architecture

Fedora supports two primary architectures:

  • i386 - 32-bit Intel/AMD-compatible
  • x86_64 - 64-bit Intel/AMD-compatible

There are also a number of secondary archs:

  • arm - A widely-used, low-power processor family commonly used for embedded and mobile applications
  • ia64 - Itanium
  • pa-risc - HP Precision Architecture
  • ppc - 32-bit Power PC
  • ppc64 - 64-bit Power PC
  • s390 - IBM mainframes (including z90 and z9)
  • sparc - Sun RISC architecture

The ARM architecture is increasingly important, but there's a lot more that could be done in terms of update frequency, number of packages successfully built, transparency of process, and integration with the other Fedora build processes.

ARM Processors

ARM chips are the most popular CPU produced -- approximately 1.6 billion are being made each year. These are being sold under a number of different brand names (ARM, StrongARM, Armada, Cortex, OMAP, Sheeva, Snapdragon, XScale) by a number of different manufacturers. Most of these are going into cellphones, but hundreds of millions are being used in other devices such as routers, NAS boxes, embedded controllers, tablets, and netbooks.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) computers, model XO-1.75, use an ARM processor. Since Fedora is used on the XO units, having a reliable ARM build of Fedora is increasingly important.

Goal

To support the Fedora ARM initiative by creating and managing a Koji build farm that will koji-shadow the primary architectures, so that every package built for the primary architectures (including updates) will be built for ARM.

Plan

Initial Plan

We're going to set up a Koji build system for ARM. Initially this will be based on the CDOT system HongKong. Initial ARM builders will use QEMU emulation, which will be replaced by ARM Hardware when it arrives.

Status

Notes on Koji status at 2010-04-17 15:15:

  • the test target dist-f13test is up and running
  • scratch builds can be performed
  • many of the VMs require NFS configuration -- they have been disabled temporarily. After setting up NFS on your VM, please enable it (or ping someone on IRC to enable it for you).

Links

Current Tasks

Task Person Status Wiki Link
Posters and Presentations All Students In progress - Poster text due April 16, Presentation text due April 20 Winter 2010 SBR600 Posters and Presentations
Koji Hub setup - PostgreSQL master Arlene Daniel Completed Koji Database
Koji Hub setup - Koji Hub configuration Paul Whalen,Sadiki Latty Completed Koji Hub
Koji Hub setup - Certificates/security Sadiki Latty Completed Koji Certificates
Koji Builder setup - Shared filesystem David Chisholm and Chris Tyler Completed Koji shared filesystem
Koji Builder setup - Koji Build Daemon David Cabral Completed Koji Builders
Performance - iSCSI vs. NFS vs. Local USB disk David Chisholm, Daniel Gilloch Completed Storage Performance
Initial mock tests on ARM Everyone Completed Initial Mock Compilation Tests
Research and create image for F12 on OpenRD-Client Paul Whalen Completed F12 on OpenRD-Client
NFS setup - HongKong to VMs David Chisholm Completed NFS Configuration
Networking with NAT to connect OpenRD Sadiki Latty Completed NAT
Revise mock config and .repo files in release RPM David Cabral , Daniel Gilloch 53% Repos
Build kernels natively and from SRPM Chris Tyler In progress Kernels
Build iSCSI-capable kernel for testing on OpenRD Chris Tyler Completed (limited iSCSI functionality) iSCSI
Set up F12 on OpenRD-Client Chris Tyler Completed OpenRD-Client
Set up F12 on SheevaPlug Alex Vlahopoulos Completed SheevaPlug
Posters & Presentation Graphics Mashfique Haque Completed Research Poster
Local F12-ARM mirror David Cabral, David Chisholm, Daniel Gilloch Completed Local mirror of ARM repositories
VM Setup Sadiki Latty, Paul Whalen, Arlene Daniel Completed Set of standing VMs running the ARM image in emulation
Mock configuration Chris Tyler Completed mock configuration repository for ARM
Bootstrap the Koji repo Chris Tyler Completed Repo Bootstrap

Resources

Wiki Pages

Mailing Lists

  • Fedora Mailing Lists
    • secondary - For discussion of secondary architectures
    • arm - For discussion of the ARM secondary architecture

Sites

IRC