Re: [microblaze-uclinux] Change to list policy

[Michal Simek <michal.simek@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

> Hi Antoine,
> 
> On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 12:48 AM, Antoine Calando <acalando@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
>>> Hi folks,
>>>
>>> For those who missed it, MicroBlaze got merged into Linus's 2.6.30-rc2
>>> tree yesterday!  This is big news, and a big thanks to Michal for the
>>> great work he did on LKML to get it sheparded in, and thanks also to
>>> Xilinx who supported us to make this happen.
>> Can you please provide more details on this merge:
>>
>> With which base was merged the official kernel? The one from Petalogix SVN,
>> or may be from Xilinx git? A mix of both? BTW what was the differences
>> between these two inital branches? The Xilinx version seems much more recent,
>> but is it as well maintained as the Petalogix one?
> 
> Hmm, where to start.  About 12 months ago, Michal took the PetaLogix
> 2.6.20 SVN kernel, and reved it up to 2.6.27 (At the time), plus a
> bunch of work replacing the older Kconfig.auto with Device Tree
> architecture, as used in PowerPC arch.

I started more than 18 months ago. :-) + U-BOOT changes and bunch of other things.

> 
> We had an attempt at mainline push then, but weren't adequately
> resourced to really give it the push it needed, so we backed away.
> 
> So, the tree that is merged has of course roots from our 2.6.20 tree,
> but has had a lot of cleanup, and uses device trees as the main
> platform configuration technology.
> 
> It's relation to git.xilinx.com MicroBlaze support is less clear, and
> indeed now that MicroBlaze is merged upstream, git.xilinx.com will
> start to reflect that fact, plus any local patches, drivers etc added
> by Xilinx.
> 
> We are plugged right in to Xilinx's open source strategy so you can
> expect to see some real convergence there over the coming months.
> 
> In time, there will also be a new PetaLinux release that bases off
> this mainline kernel.  As you can imagine, there's some significant
> re-engineering required on our part to achieve this, due to a number
> of modernisations and changes in the mainline tree.

There are and will be a lot of new features + mainline kernel is/will be the most tested
kernel ever.

Michal

> 
>> How is going to evolve Petalinux and Linux kernel repositories from now?
>> Will all changes be reported on a regular basis between each one?
> 
> I can';t speak for xilinx on the management of git.xilinx.com, but as
> I said above I expect to see some real convergence there.  Most of
> what will differ in git.xilnc.com vs upstream will probably be drivers
> before they are merged, more than core arch support.
> 
>> BTW, I have some similiar questions for GCC Microblaze:
>> Who provides the support for mb? I assumed until now that the Petalinux
>> toolchain is based on Xilinx git compiler branch and uClinux linker
>> scripts/utilities. I am correct?
> 
> Currently core gcc work for MB is done by Xilinx, and PetaLogix builds
> Linux-ready toolchains for distribution with PetaLinux.
> 
>> Is it planned to merge it with official GCC tree?
> 
> I've been discussing this very idea up and down various levels of
> management at Xilinx the last week, and certainly they recognise the
> value.  We are now looking at ways to make that happen.
> 
>> Those are many questions, I hope the answers will clarify my understanding of
>> the Microblaze developers community.
> 
> Hope it clears things up.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> John

-- 
Michal Simek, Ing. (M.Eng)
PetaLogix - Linux Solutions for a Reconfigurable World
w: www.petalogix.com p: +61-7-30090663,+42-0-721842854 f: +61-7-30090663
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