On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 03:08:05PM -0600, Adam Litke wrote:
> It seems that the discussion on this issue has stalled a bit so I will
> try to summarize where we are on this and attempt to address the
> outstanding concerns.
>
> I think everyone agrees that switching to Python will enable feature
> development in the test suite which is simply not practical with a shell
> script. The only drawback so far mentioned is significant. The
> availability of Python across embedded platforms that may want to test
> huge pages has been questioned.
>
> The three prominent embedded architectures that we are likely to
> interact with are: sh, alpha, and ppc. Of these, only ppc is actually
> supported by libhugetlbfs at the moment. For ppc boards, if it is
> impossible to create a test environment including Python, a larger but
> architecturally equivalent machine can be used to test the kernel and
That's not necessarily easy. Remember that ppc!=ppc - the embedded
chips have different MMUs to the desktop/server chips, and so
different hugepage code. A bigger machine with the same type of CPU
(and therefore MMU) may not be available.
> library functionality. Failing that, Python Freeze can be used to
> create an executable that is independent of Python. We could even
> assist in this process assuming actual demand for it.
This might work well, but we need to check Freeze's characteristics
first. How big are its output binaries, what libraries do the output
binaries depend on, and can it be set up to "cross-compile"? Remember
the problem is only partly that the embedded test machine may have
different hardware from bigger dev machines - it also may have a
different software environment; a cut-down embedded distro for
example.
> While a dependency on Python could possibly impact a small number of
> embedded users, I feel the benefits of a more robust set of tests far
> outweigh the downsides of the added dependency.
I suspect you're right, but I really want to have a bit surer footing
on our plans for handling embedded systems first.
--
David Gibson | I'll have my music baroque, and my code
david AT gibson.dropbear.id.au | minimalist, thank you. NOT _the_ _other_
| _way_ _around_!
http://www.ozlabs.org/~dgibson
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