From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: ng0@crash.cx Subject: Re: GSoC Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2018 12:41:14 +0000 Message-ID: <871shvodqt.fsf@abyayala.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me> References: <87bmh4qrf5.fsf@abyayala.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me> <87bmh3kbd9.fsf@gnu.org> <87k1vqv23v.fsf@abyayala.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me> <87r2pv67vv.fsf@abyayala.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me> <876077oe6z.fsf@abyayala.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:37421) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ejlW9-0004ih-IR for guix-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 08 Feb 2018 07:41:35 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ejlW6-0002Rn-CG for guix-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 08 Feb 2018 07:41:33 -0500 Received: from aibo.runbox.com ([91.220.196.211]:58492) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ejlW6-0002RW-0n for guix-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 08 Feb 2018 07:41:30 -0500 Received: from [10.9.9.211] (helo=mailfront11.runbox.com) by mailtransmit02.runbox with esmtp (Exim 4.86_2) (envelope-from ) id 1ejlW4-0008JO-Oe for guix-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 08 Feb 2018 13:41:28 +0100 In-Reply-To: <876077oe6z.fsf@abyayala.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me> (ng0@crash.cx's message of "Thu, 08 Feb 2018 12:31:32 +0000") List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: ng0@crash.cx Cc: Guix-devel On Thu, 08 Feb 2018, ng0@crash.cx wrote: > On Thu, 08 Feb 2018, Gábor Boskovits wrote: >> 2018-02-08 12:25 GMT+01:00 : >> >>> On Tue, 06 Feb 2018, ng0@n0.is wrote: >>> > On second thoughts I think it's okay to have all of this in >>> > public, there are no stupid questions. >>> > >>> > On Mon, 05 Feb 2018, ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) wrote: >>> >> Heya, >>> >> >>> >> ng0@n0.is skribis: >>> >> >>> >>> Sorry for the offlist message, but I thought since you list >>> >>> yourself as possible mentor for the item I'd ask. >>> >> >>> >> What? I didn’t add myself there I think, we should find out where that >>> >> comes from. :-) >>> > >>> > So.. who added Ludovic to the RISC-V item? And if not Ludovic, >>> > who'd be a good mentor for this item (and has time to spend on >>> > it)? Manolis has worked on porting to a different kernel, Efraim >>> > has worked on porting to another architecture. >>> > >>> >>> With regards to RISC-V porting: a question I don't dare asking in >>> >>> public because it's answer could be too obvious: is the porting >>> >>> possible without owning any real RISC-V hardware? >>> >> >>> >> I know very little about RISC-V, but I suppose QEMU could help (and most >>> >> of the porting work is about getting cross-compilation right.) >>> >> >>> >>> I think at this point I know enough in Guix to port it to another >>> >>> architecture and would apply for this when the GSoC student >>> >>> applications are open, depending on your reply. >>> >> >>> >> Cool. I think you’re welcome to discuss publicly the details and, as a >>> >> last resort, privately with the person who submitted this idea (I don’t >>> >> remember who that was, but we could ask on the list.) >>> >> >>> >> Cheers, >>> >> Ludo’. >>> >> >>> > >>> > So, ahead of time, I'm interested in porting Guix to >>> > RISC-V. Looking at the timeline on the Google GSoC website it >>> > falls into my next semester where I can't tell you right how many >>> > hours I have available. >>> > Students applications period starts in March, so that gives me >>> > enough time to look into how porting without owning the hardware >>> > works, refreshing my memory on it (recently I've read about slow >>> > but native compiling of ARM on qemu). >>> > As Ludovic wrote, and by my understanding of porting, it will >>> > mostly cover bootstrap + ideally having a compiled (better: >>> > functional) Guix on RISC-V? >>> >>> I've started looking into the details of how Fedora and Debian >>> did it. Would be really good if we'd get glibc-2.27 in the next >>> couple of months because 2.27 added RISC-V support. That's not a >>> precondition for porting but it would help later on. >>> I guess we have 2.27 in core-updates? >>> >>> >> Unfortunately, no. We actually have 2.26 currently. >> As we are trying to get core-updates merged soon, I guess it will >> only into the next core-updates cycle. However we do have everything else, >> the binutils and gcc support is already on core-updates. >> >> I guess that we could give it a try without actual hardware. > > Yup, exactly what Fedora + Debian do (qemu etc). > >> We should not >> support the architecture officially until we have build farm >> capacity. > > Right, I agree. > >> I currently see porting to RISC-V a bootstrapping issue, it would be really >> nice if we could relax assumptions about hardware. >> >> I am really interested in this, and I proposed the idea, but: >> 1. the toolchain is not really reliable yet, according to conversations on >> the >> #bootstrappable channel. > > Yeah, I've noticed that too. On the other hand RISC-V > mailinglists speak of starting first application ports (Java for > example). I guess more reading, in about a week I have time to do > this, will give me a better view on the problems and situation of > RISC-V in the real world + our own toolchain. > >> 2. Ricardo noted, that this kind of project can be quite discouraging for >> new >> contributors, as it requires lot of time to build. > > Well, I'm not a new contributor (I only had to change my email > address again, multiple reasons etc. I'll stick to this domain > now.).. Time spent building is no problem for me. > Plus I need only little help I'd guess, being 3+ years in this > project. It's nothing that will require lots of Guile expertise > (I wouldn't call myself an Guile expert, but by now I'm starting > to grok g-exps, which wasn't the case 2 years ago). Addition: I don't know what to expect, I know what mentoring is, I just wanted to express that I feel like I understand a good part of Guix, a bit about the way it bootstraps, and I'm patient when it comes to doing lots of building for a long time. I just felt I didn't express this in the quoted message. I will probably still have questions should we find this item doable at this stage of RISC-V toolchain support. >> If you are still willing to try this, in spite of the concerns raised >> above, then I >> guess we could arrange mentoring you. > > Okay, great. > As I wrote above, I'll look into the Debian + Fedora material and > will take a good guess about weather we are too early for this on > Guix or not. > >>> I have a couple more exams and tests upcoming, but I'll start >>> writing the application soon. I have some vague ideas how this >>> could be done and need to read into Fedora's approach more to >>> write up something that fits for us. >>> I guess this is how it usually goes, write an application, >>> discuss the application and then decide wether this would work >>> out for the GSoC item and submit to Google.. According to what I >>> saw here in the past and read this year at the Google Summer of >>> Code website at Google. >>> -- >>> ng0 :: https://crash.cx >>> A88C8ADD129828D7EAC02E52E22F9BBFEE348588 :: https://crash.cx/keys/ >>> >>> -- ng0 :: https://crash.cx A88C8ADD129828D7EAC02E52E22F9BBFEE348588 :: https://crash.cx/keys/