From b7c5becc96ea1fb1a54ce6bbf38e665ac479cc8b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Hanlon Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2023 12:04:06 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] meeting 2023-12-15 --- docs/events/meeting-notes/2023-12-15.md | 103 ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 103 insertions(+) create mode 100644 docs/events/meeting-notes/2023-12-15.md diff --git a/docs/events/meeting-notes/2023-12-15.md b/docs/events/meeting-notes/2023-12-15.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f6d3981 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/events/meeting-notes/2023-12-15.md @@ -0,0 +1,103 @@ +# SIG/AltArch meeting 2023-12-15 + +## Attendees: + * Sherif + * Bryan + * Pablo Greco + * Neil Hanlon + * Skip Grube + +## Follow Ups + +* Libre Compute - Try/Investigate using vendor tree to build uboot - Pratham +* Investigate `arm-image-installer` script/tool for helping write disk images for specific boards - Sherif (?) +* Odroid N2 - Track installability +* Orange Pi 5 - Track installability +* Rock5b - Track installability +* Libre Computing Boards (3) +* Maintenance - Importing dependencies from Fedora/EPEL + * Neil is working on this as part of SIG/HPC, too +* Document process on backporting uboot and kernels - Pablo + * To include information on how we work and interact with upstreams, with examples! - Sherif +* Check and investigate which boards have hardcoded grubx64 paths in their uboot; address them + +## Discussions + +* Neil provided Sherif with 2 RPi CM4s (+ IO boards), an RPi5, and a SiFive VF2 (RiscV) at SC23 in November +* Need to work on integrating SBC and related changes into SIG/Kernel mainline in order to have unified kernel + * Bryan has tried mainline kernel, but it isn't booting -- ends up in dracut shell. + * Will figure out how to capture logs via serial + * Libre Tritium H5 +* It's all Skip's fault +* 32-bit arm (armhfp/arm7vl) Rocky Port + * Sherif has some odroid boards from work he can donate + * Odroid XU4 x2 + * Odroid XU4Q x1 - XU4 w/ massive heatsink + * Current status (per Pablo) + * have the full bootstrap up to 9.1; we need to start building atop it + * need to add Peridot support for armhfp (i can't remember if we included the arch as an option) + * where will we host the odroid boards from Sherif + * Most of the SBCs for arm7vl/armhfp are not powerful enough to be good build hosts. Maybe we should try Honeycombs? (Solid-run) + * Pablo used his honeycomb and a fedora image to do the initial bootstrap builds + * Neil will reach out to OSU about availability of Lenovo eMAGs for us + * has neil spoken to Fabian? - No ; Neil will do this +* RISCv Rocky Port Status + * Neil - Investigate what and how much riscv hardware we need.. and where we'll host it + * This probably is going to be a whole bunch of VF2s + * P670 (16-core - MilkV oasis) would be great, but, upstream support is not yet there. VF2 is a better target for Rocky 9 +* Various conversations happened here but Neil was dealing with keeping all the mice in his house dead. The following is second-hand :) +* Rpi Kernel - Should it live? + * We want to get rid of it, but we can't yet. Skip says yes + * Plan: + * Build the rpi kernel as a variant of the mainline + * rpi kernel will be subsumed into kernel-mainline-sbc, not further upstream + * This will allow more obvious contribution to ELrepo for SBCs + * RPI image will be replaced with a new GenericArm-SBC image produced by Empanadas which includes kernel-mainline-sbc +* Next meetings + * Dec 29 - Cancel. + * Jan 12 - Keep + +## Action Items + +* Neil to actually make tickets for the follow ups / decisions. But, like, for real this time. +* Neil to reach out to people re: ARMHFP hardwares + * Ampere + * OSUOSL + * Fabian (arrfab) +* Neil to figure out what RISCv hardware we need +* Announce Dec 29th meeting cancelation + +## Old business + +### 2023-10-20 + +#### Action Items + +* Libre Compute - Try/Investigate using vendor tree to build uboot - Pratham +* Investigate `arm-image-installer` script/tool for helping write disk images for specific boards - Sherif (?) +* Odroid N2 - Track installability +* Orange Pi 5 - Track installability +* Rock5b - Track installability +* Libre Computing Boards (3) +* Maintenance - Importing dependencies from Fedora/EPEL +* Document process on backporting uboot and kernels - Pablo + * To include information on how we work and interact with upstreams, with examples! - Sherif +* Check and investigate which boards have hardcoded grubx64 paths in their uboot; address them +* Acquire armhfp (arm7vl) hardware - Neil to reach out to OSU OSL +* Neil - Investigate what and how much riscv hardware we need.. and where we'll host it + +#### Decisions + * Images should be generic so as to be able to be installed on any board, where possible. + * uboot can live on SPI or external flash + * We need to help document this for our users and have guides on how to get the SBCs working. This is a big pain point for many SBC users as there is so much variation. + * To this end, we should investigate some tooling to aid in writing images for boards which will boot on the first try. + * Uboot should similarly be generic and work for all boards, insofar as it is practical to do so. + * Some boards this doesn't make sense for, e.g., ones that have uboot from 2014 + hundreds of patches, however, these are few and far between. For these, we can package them as RPMs and provide them (see note below re: licensing) + * We will wait for the next Kernel.org LTS to be cut, as that should have all the changes for the boards we're talking about. + * We will engage with our upstreams (Fedora, ELRepo, etc) for changes we make with the Kernel SIG for AltArch/SBC support. + * This necessitates participating in SIG/Kernel to represent our needs in these kernels. + * We should strive to perform native builds when possible, but recognize that emulation is a necessary evil. + +!!! note "uboot and other licensing" + We need to ensure that we are careful about the licensing of softwares we wish to include in the SIG distribution. +