Nope, m5 is all straight-up C++ and Python with no host architecture
dependences.  So you can boot Solaris on a simulated SPARC with m5 running
on an x86 host just fine.  It's even in our regression tests; just give
scons this argument:

build/SPARC_FS/tests/fast/long/80.solaris-boot/sparc/solaris/t1000-simple-
atomic

The only situation where there's any host dependence at all is endianness,
and that's just a matter of testing.  So while both big- and little-endian
targets work fine on little-endian hosts (since we do practically all our
development on x86), there may be lurking bugs if you try and run a
little-endian target on a big-endian host (like x86 on SPARC).  But those
would be bugs and not design dependencies.

Steve

On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 3:58 PM, Jeff Diamond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

> Thanks Ali.  I think I understand now. You're referring to what's being
> modeled, not the type of processor you need to run the simulation.  But
> I'm assuming that parts of the full system simulation still require
> specific properties of the host, even though it's not native execution.
> So for example, I assume that even with a full system simulation model,
> I couldn't run M5 on an X86 and simulate Niagara.  Or could I?
>
> - Jeff
>
> P.S.  I know we've exchanged a lot of emails on this, and I really
> appreciate your patience.
>
> Ali Saidi wrote:
> >
> > On Mar 28, 2008, at 6:43 PM, Jeff Diamond wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> Ali Saidi wrote:
> >>> I should clarify that full-system isn't supported for *SPARC* in our
> >>> out-of-order model (it does work for syscall emulation), and it
> >>> could work with full-system, but some of the ASI nastiness would
> >>> have to be handled. Our out-of-order model simulates Alpha
> >>> full-system just fine.
> >>
> >> So to clarify your earlier statement, does full system work for a
> >> "SPARC" in order model?  That is to say, it's using SPARC binaries?
> >> Maybe if you haven't had a need to do a full system test in OO mode,
> >> then it might not be so critical...
> > We can boot a one processor Solaris system on the SPARC architecture
> > as long as the processor is an in-order machine. To do so we model a
> > Sun T2000 machine (Niagara) . Clear?
> >
> >
> > Ali
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > m5-users mailing list
> > [email protected]
> > http://m5sim.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/m5-users
> >
> _______________________________________________
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