SCUMbria - Since you are so fond of Intel's Merced Sinulator - this is for YOU !
Enjoy !
Paul
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Trillian makes headway on Linux for Merced
By Craig Matsumoto, EE Times
Aug 11, 1999 (2:26 PM)
URL: eetimes.com
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Techies at the Linux World conference got their first detailed look at Linux running on Intel Corp.'s IA-64 platform this week. Gathered in a dimly lit room, a handful of programmers watched patiently as a Merced simulator booted the Linux kernel in single- and dual-processor modes. While there wasn't much to look at, the boot-up represented quite an accomplishment. Unlike applications software, kernel code has to be nearly perfect or it won't operate at all, according to J.C. Lawrence, an employee of VA Linux Inc. and project manager of Trillian, the mini-consortium charged with making Linux work with IA-64.
Intel's keynote speech at Linux World on Tuesday (Aug. 10) included a glimpse of Linux running on the Merced simulator, and developers were invited to get a closer look at an informal session run by Trillian members later that day. Project participants answered questions about their progress while the simulator slowly booted up and executed simple commands.
Trillian was formed by Intel and VA Linux (Sunnyvale, Calif.), a maker of Linux-based workstations and servers, and counts Hewlett-Packard Co., Silicon Graphics Inc. and Cygnus Solutions as members. IBM Corp. joined up earlier this week. The group's charter is to prep Linux for the Merced age, making the necessary changes to the kernel so that it will run properly on IA-64 hardware.
In theory, when the first Merced computer comes off the assembly line, Trillian's people should be able to pop in a CD-ROM, load their kernel, and boot up. Whether that happens depends on what kinds of bugs permeate the first hardware, but Trillian members are optimistic that they'll have Linux available for the very first run of Merced machines.
Linux creator Linus Torvalds remains the lone arbiter of the kernel, and the Trillian project ultimately must pass his approval to be included in Linux. Talks with Torvalds haven't begun due to non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) put up by Intel — in fact, most project details can't be discussed by the Trillian team.
For that reason, Trillian members are touching as little of the kernel as possible. Work is confined to the "least, minimum changes," Lawrence said, and nearly all of Trillian's Linux patch is confined to the portion of code that's hardware dependent.
Once Intel lifts its NDAs, the source code will be released to the general public, in keeping with the open-source philosophy that bred the Gnu movement and, later, Linux. That release will come in the first quarter of 2000, according to Sean Maloney, senior vice president of Intel.
Meanwhile, Intel spills Merced tidbits on occasion. "As the Merced thing moves forward, Intel takes various documents and pieces of intellectual property and publishes them," Lawrence said. Documents go down a color-coded spectrum of secrecy, from ultra-private red covers, to orange, then yellow, then white. Once the Trillian patch is "white-covered," which makes it safe to release publicly, the team will probably let Torvalds see the patch, and that step could possibly come before the actual release of Merced.
"If he accepts the patch fairly quickly, he'll merge it into whatever tree he's working on," Lawrence said. That will put the Merced patch on track to be included in the subsequent revision of Linux.
Development of the Trillian patch is being done in segments. Starting from a common kernel, team members volunteer to tackle individual parts of code and work independently on their pieces. The completed changes are melded together into a new kernel, and the process is repeated.
"That compartmentalization is not only how the kernel is built, but it stops people from treading on each other's toes," Lawrence said.
Much of the groundwork for matching Linux to IA-64 was done by HP, which had its own simulator for the Merced CPU. Trillian's simulator, first made available to the project in May, covers the entire IA-64 reference platform: CPU, storage, I/Os, networking, etc. Trillian is handling the "platform backfill," Lawrence said, while HP and SGI are working on Gnu-based compilers which will be available on an open-source basis.
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