Re: [OSSTEST PATCH] README.hardware-acquisition

[Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@kernel.org>]

On Wed, 31 Oct 2018, George Dunlap wrote:
> [CC'ing Stefano and Julien]
> On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 5:49 PM George Dunlap <dunlapg@umich.edu> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 4:14 PM Ian Jackson <ian.jackson@eu.citrix.com> wrote:
> > > +   + Baremetal boot from Debian stable or stable-backports:
> > > +
> > > +     A suitable Linux kernel binary which can boot baremetal on the
> > > +     proposed hardware must be available from Debian (at least
> > > +     `stable', or, if that is not possible `stable-backports').  It is
> > > +     not OK to require a patched version of Linux, or a version of
> > > +     Linux built from a particular git branch, or some such.  If the
> > > +     required kernel is not available in Debian, the vendor should
> > > +     first work with the Debian project to ensure and validate that
> > > +     the Debian stable-backports kernel binaries boot on the proposed
> > > +     hardware.
> >
> > So it sounds like (from the rest of this discussion) the real
> > requirement is "osstest must be able to install a system such that it
> > can build the target versions of Linux and Xen".  At the moment, that
> > means that the proposed hardware must be supported by debian +
> > stable-backports.  Osstest does not have functionality to build custom
> > versions of Linux for build boxes, nor does it have support for Yocto.
> >
> > Would it make sense to reword it this way:
> >
> > ---
> > + Baremetal boot from Debian stable or stable-backports:
> >
> > In order to avoid cross-compilation, Osstest must be able to install a
> > bare-metal system on the host itself in order to build Linux and Xen
> > test binaries for that host. At the moment osstest uses Debian for
> > this, and there is no facility in osstest for building custom kernels
> > for this purpose.  As such, a suitable Linux kernel binary which can
> > boot baremetal on the proposed hardware must be available from Debian
> > (at least `stable', or, if that is not possible, `stable-backports').
> > Osstest cannot install using a patched version of Linux, or one built
> > from a particular git branch, or some such.  If the required kernel is
> > not available in Debian, the vendor should ideally work with the
> > Debian project to ensure and validate that Debian stable-backports
> > kernel binaries boot on the proposed hardware.  Alternately, the
> > vendor can work with the community to implement the necessary
> > functionality within osstest to enable it to build custom kernels for
> > build installs, or use alternate distributions which have better
> > baremetal support for the hardware.

If we want to grow Xen on ARM testing in OSSTest for embedded boards, I
think that requiring Debian kernel support is unrealistic, as both me
with my Xilinx hat on, and Artem with his EPAM/Renesas hat on, wrote in
the past. Xilinx and Renesas are two of the best ARM vendors, imagine
the others. The Debian kernel requirement disqualifies all boards we
care about on embedded I know about at the moment. (Unrelated: this is
why for ViryaOS we went with the Yocto kernel.)

Vendors would certainly push for the usage of their own Linux trees.

The best compromise is to use our own Xen Project Linux tree for
testing. We could build, by hand if necessary, kernel binaries out of
it, push them to a known location and have OSSTest use them.

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