[Xen-ia64-devel] sparse checkins underway in xen-ia64-unstable

["Magenheimer, Dan (HP Labs Fort Collins)" <dan.magenheimer@xxxxxx>]

We agreed about a month ago that we need to eliminate the
xenlinux-ia64-2.6.12.hg tree for building xenlinux/ia64
because it has been very difficult to ensure it remains
synchronized with xen-ia64-unstable.hg (and, indirectly,
with xen-unstable.hg).

As a result, with some help from the core Xen team, I have
gotten some core build script changes that allow
xenlinux/ia64 to be built using the same method as
the core x86 builds, using the "-sparse" tree.  Once
the sparse tree is populated for ia64, xen/ia64 developers
and users will be able to build both xen/ia64 and
xenlinux/ia64 out of a single xen-ia64-unstable (or,
eventually, xen-unstable) tree.

I have started populating the sparse tree in
xen-ia64-unstable and have used it to successfully build
(and test) a "driver-less" domain0.  All changes have
been committed to the public tree; "make" in the
main hg directory now builds xenlinux/ia64 as well
as xen/ia64!

At some point soon, I will need to sync with xen-unstable
so we can get the changes-to-date into the core tree.

Next step is to be able to build a xenlinux with the Xen
drivers so that multiple domains can be built using
the sparse tree.  There are still a few patches required
in various drivers/xen files, though we are slowly getting
the necessary changes into the core.  For the short term,
we may need to do this by applying a patch file (and
there is a recently added arch-dep hook script,
xen-mkbuildtree-post, that can be used to automatically
apply the patch).

As an added bonus, because this is a good transition point,
I threw in the xenlinux changes necessary to return ar.kr
control to the guest.  (Eddie and I had previously developed
and debugged a patch to eliminate ar.kr usage in Xen
itself but xenlinux was still using hyperregisters instead
of the real kr's.)  This is also checked in and performance
(for build-linux) measured as getting worse by only about
0.03% (0.5 seconds in about 1600).  For more detail, see:
http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-ia64-devel/2005-08/msg00018
.html

One other note: The linux config script currently checked in
to the sparse tree is the one for zx1.  This was for my
testing convenience.  Since the core build scripts don't
allow for a choice of config files, we will either need
to get another change to the scripts, or will need to
find/develop a single config file that works for xenlinux
on both tiger4 and HP machines.

Thanks,
Dan


_______________________________________________
Xen-ia64-devel mailing list
Xen-ia64-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-ia64-devel