Fedora ARM Secondary Architecture
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.
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 2010-04-10 15:50:
- hub is UP!
- kojira user added
- builder on arm-001-008 is UP! -- see: koji list-hosts
- arm target has been added: koji list-targets
- test tag has been added: koji list-tags
- next: need to set up kojira and bootstrap the build process. Also need to set up koji-web.
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 | DONE | Koji Builders |
| Performance - iSCSI vs. NFS vs. Local USB disk | David Chisholm | 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 | 53% | Repos |
| Build kernels natively and from SRPM | Chris Tyler | In progress | Kernels |
| Build iSCSI-capable kernel for testing on OpenRD | Chris Tyler | Completed | 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 | In Progress | 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 (to be tested) | Repo Bootstrap |
Resources
Wiki Pages
Mailing Lists
Sites
- Koji software project site
- Booting OpenRD from SD: http://blog.thebehrens.net/category/tinkering/
- SheevaPlug Update instructions: http://chiana.homelinux.org/~marc/eib_sheeva.html
IRC
- Secondary Arch lead - Dennis Gilmore - dgilmore on irc://irc.freenode.net/fedora-devel or irc://irc.freenode.net/fedora-arm
- Fedora-ARM community - irc://irc.freenode.net/fedora-arm
- Koji community: irc://irc.freenode.net/koji