On 13 January 2014 09:05, Piotr Szturmaj <bncrbme@jadamspam.pl> wrote:
> Johannes Pfau wrote:
>>
>> Am Thu, 09 Jan 2014 19:07:17 +0100
>> schrieb Piotr Szturmaj <bncrbme@jadamspam.pl>:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>
>>
>> Answers for GDC:
>>
>>> I'm developing embedded system product on ARM9/Linux platform and I wish I could use D and vibe.d for this task.
>>>
>>
>> ARMv5 or ARMv4? I tested ARMv5 and that should work. ARMv4 should work as well but is untested.
>
>
> It's ARM926EJ-S CPU (ARMv5).
>
>>> I have couple of questions in this matter:
>>> - Can you estimate eventual cost of supporting D on ARM (think of
>>> paid bounty).
>>
>>
>> Can't speak for anyone else but for me it's more a matter of missing time than of money. Probably donating a board for the auto-tester could help.
>
>
> I can do that, but it might be easier to run QEMU tester. QEMU supports emulation of Versatile board with exactly same CPU and it should run at the same speed as the board (~400MHz) on modern x86 machine. What do you think?


QEMU testing is quirky.  If your lucky and get it working, don't make any system changes. :o)

Saying that, ARM is the only emulation that I've gotten working where I've actually built GDC ontop of.

Regards
Iain

Iain Buclaw wrote:
> QEMU testing is quirky.  If your lucky and get it working, don't make
> any system changes. :o)

What do you mean exactly?

> Saying that, ARM is the only emulation that I've gotten working where
> I've actually built GDC ontop of.

For anyone interested:

Here are prebuilt Debian Squeeze(2.6.32) / Wheezy(3.2.0) images for Versatile/QEMU: http://people.debian.org/~aurel32/qemu/armel/ (link taken from http://wiki.redsleeve.org/index.php/QEMU). They should work out of the box :-)

Here's guide on emulating Versatile platform (it's based on older Debian Etch): http://www.aurel32.net/info/debian_arm_qemu.php

I think GDC should run on plain Debian Wheezy just fine.

Am Mon, 13 Jan 2014 12:25:17 +0100
schrieb Piotr Szturmaj <bncrbme@jadamspam.pl>:

> Iain Buclaw wrote:
> > QEMU testing is quirky.  If your lucky and get it working, don't make any system changes. :o)
> 
> What do you mean exactly?
> 
> > Saying that, ARM is the only emulation that I've gotten working where I've actually built GDC ontop of.
> 
> For anyone interested:
> 
> Here are prebuilt Debian Squeeze(2.6.32) / Wheezy(3.2.0) images for
> Versatile/QEMU: http://people.debian.org/~aurel32/qemu/armel/ (link
> taken from http://wiki.redsleeve.org/index.php/QEMU). They should
> work out of the box :-)
> 
> Here's guide on emulating Versatile platform (it's based on older Debian Etch): http://www.aurel32.net/info/debian_arm_qemu.php
> 
> I think GDC should run on plain Debian Wheezy just fine.

I actually used that VM image some time ago. My main problem was that
qemu crashed often, but that could have been my fault.
Compiling on QEMU is quite slow IIRC, but Brad would have to decide if
an emulator solution or a real board is better for the auto tester.

Do you have any experience with the cubieboard (1)? I think SATA would be quite nice cause SD-cards are a real bottleneck when compiling. But I never used one of those boards so I don't know how well they're working...

On 1/14/14 11:14 AM, Johannes Pfau wrote:
>
> I actually used that VM image some time ago. My main problem was that
> qemu crashed often, but that could have been my fault.
> Compiling on QEMU is quite slow IIRC, but Brad would have to decide if
> an emulator solution or a real board is better for the auto tester.
>
> Do you have any experience with the cubieboard (1)? I think SATA would
> be quite nice cause SD-cards are a real bottleneck when compiling. But
> I never used one of those boards so I don't know how well they're
> working...

It'd actually be whoever donates the equipment to run the auto-tester on.  I don't care if I'm logging into a virtual or physical box, as long as it supports ssh and the other requirements of the test system.

I've used both in the past.  On modern arm, I suspect it'd be significantly faster than even a very fast x86 box emulating an arm system, but I'm not picky.

Johannes Pfau wrote:
> Am Mon, 13 Jan 2014 12:25:17 +0100
> schrieb Piotr Szturmaj <bncrbme@jadamspam.pl>:
>
>> Iain Buclaw wrote:
>>> QEMU testing is quirky.  If your lucky and get it working, don't
>>> make any system changes. :o)
>>
>> What do you mean exactly?
>>
>>> Saying that, ARM is the only emulation that I've gotten working
>>> where I've actually built GDC ontop of.
>>
>> For anyone interested:
>>
>> Here are prebuilt Debian Squeeze(2.6.32) / Wheezy(3.2.0) images for
>> Versatile/QEMU: http://people.debian.org/~aurel32/qemu/armel/ (link
>> taken from http://wiki.redsleeve.org/index.php/QEMU). They should
>> work out of the box :-)
>>
>> Here's guide on emulating Versatile platform (it's based on older
>> Debian Etch): http://www.aurel32.net/info/debian_arm_qemu.php
>>
>> I think GDC should run on plain Debian Wheezy just fine.
>
> I actually used that VM image some time ago. My main problem was that
> qemu crashed often, but that could have been my fault.

How long ago? Because these images seem to be updated frequently (actual images are from december 2013). I think I can take a look and prepare working QEMU + VM image for auto tester. I just need some free time...

> Compiling on QEMU is quite slow IIRC, but Brad would have to decide if
> an emulator solution or a real board is better for the auto tester.

Ok, but personally I would never compile on the board (slow!). I would rather use a cross-compiler.

> Do you have any experience with the cubieboard (1)?

Sorry, no.

> I think SATA would
> be quite nice cause SD-cards are a real bottleneck when compiling. But
> I never used one of those boards so I don't know how well they're
> working...

I recall that with Raspberry Pi I was using network file system hosted on my local machine. SD card was used only for boot. It worked pretty good.

On 14 January 2014 22:36, Piotr Szturmaj <bncrbme@jadamspam.pl> wrote:
> Johannes Pfau wrote:
>>
>> Am Mon, 13 Jan 2014 12:25:17 +0100
>> schrieb Piotr Szturmaj <bncrbme@jadamspam.pl>:
>>
>>> Iain Buclaw wrote:
>>>>
>>>> QEMU testing is quirky.  If your lucky and get it working, don't make any system changes. :o)
>>>
>>>
>>> What do you mean exactly?
>>>
>>>> Saying that, ARM is the only emulation that I've gotten working where I've actually built GDC ontop of.
>>>
>>>
>>> For anyone interested:
>>>
>>> Here are prebuilt Debian Squeeze(2.6.32) / Wheezy(3.2.0) images for
>>> Versatile/QEMU: http://people.debian.org/~aurel32/qemu/armel/ (link
>>> taken from http://wiki.redsleeve.org/index.php/QEMU). They should
>>> work out of the box :-)
>>>
>>> Here's guide on emulating Versatile platform (it's based on older Debian Etch): http://www.aurel32.net/info/debian_arm_qemu.php
>>>
>>> I think GDC should run on plain Debian Wheezy just fine.
>>
>>
>> I actually used that VM image some time ago. My main problem was that qemu crashed often, but that could have been my fault.
>
>
> How long ago? Because these images seem to be updated frequently (actual images are from december 2013). I think I can take a look and prepare working QEMU + VM image for auto tester. I just need some free time...
>

It doesn't matter when the images was created, it matters what version of QEMU is running them.  :-)

I tried those images earlier today for instance, none of them worked on Ubuntu Precise.

Iain Buclaw wrote:
> On 14 January 2014 22:36, Piotr Szturmaj <bncrbme@jadamspam.pl> wrote:
>> Johannes Pfau wrote:
>>>
>>> Am Mon, 13 Jan 2014 12:25:17 +0100
>>> schrieb Piotr Szturmaj <bncrbme@jadamspam.pl>:
>>>
>>>> Iain Buclaw wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> QEMU testing is quirky.  If your lucky and get it working, don't
>>>>> make any system changes. :o)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What do you mean exactly?
>>>>
>>>>> Saying that, ARM is the only emulation that I've gotten working
>>>>> where I've actually built GDC ontop of.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> For anyone interested:
>>>>
>>>> Here are prebuilt Debian Squeeze(2.6.32) / Wheezy(3.2.0) images for
>>>> Versatile/QEMU: http://people.debian.org/~aurel32/qemu/armel/ (link
>>>> taken from http://wiki.redsleeve.org/index.php/QEMU). They should
>>>> work out of the box :-)
>>>>
>>>> Here's guide on emulating Versatile platform (it's based on older
>>>> Debian Etch): http://www.aurel32.net/info/debian_arm_qemu.php
>>>>
>>>> I think GDC should run on plain Debian Wheezy just fine.
>>>
>>>
>>> I actually used that VM image some time ago. My main problem was that
>>> qemu crashed often, but that could have been my fault.
>>
>>
>> How long ago? Because these images seem to be updated frequently (actual
>> images are from december 2013). I think I can take a look and prepare
>> working QEMU + VM image for auto tester. I just need some free time...
>>
>
> It doesn't matter when the images was created, it matters what version
> of QEMU is running them.  :-)
>
> I tried those images earlier today for instance, none of them worked
> on Ubuntu Precise.

It seems that Ubuntu Precise has QEMU 1.0.50, but according to README.TXT which is hosted with those images, you'd need version 1.1.0 or later.

Now is the time when ARM may become really important:
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/amd-reveals-its-first-arm-processor-8-core-opteron-a1100/