Hey Stefano
Agree on the graphics integration. It would be ideal if we could get virtio-gpu working, and I know this is something we are planning on looking for Xen at some point in the future. It would fit well with where the rest of the world seem to be going (see the announcement from OpenSynergy and Google), plus it is the recommendation from GENIVI.
I believe the GPU in the Ultra64 is a Mali400, I believe that the VirGL solution should work with either the proprietary or Open Source GPU driver.
/Matt ________________________________ From: Stefano Stabellini stefano.stabellini@xilinx.com Sent: 09 July 2020 22:42 To: Alex Bennée alex.bennee@linaro.org Cc: Stefano Stabellini stefano.stabellini@xilinx.com; Matt Spencer Matt.Spencer@arm.com; mike.holmes@linaro.org mike.holmes@linaro.org; stratos-dev@op-lists.linaro.org stratos-dev@op-lists.linaro.org; Peter Griffin peter.griffin@linaro.org; Tom Gall tom.gall@linaro.org Subject: Re: Brainstorming potential AGL/VirtIO demo
Hi Alex,
Thank you for writing it all into an email.
Comments inline below.
On Thu, 9 Jul 2020, Alex Bennée wrote:
Hi Stefano,
I thought I'd better commit the idea to email (and the list) so we can work out what's feasible.
Concept:
Boot AGL Linux on two different boards/hypervisors
Detail:
We build AGL Linux with VirtIO block/network enabled in the kernel. We then take the single image (blockdev with firmware boot or direct kernel boot?) and demonstrate it booting on two different hardware platforms with two different hypervisors.
System 1:
MACCHIATOBin (4xA72) Debian Host OS + KVM Boot with QEMU + KVM
System 2
Ultra 96 (2xA53 + 2xR5s)
Ultra96 has 4 A53 cores and 2 R5 cores.
Xen Hypervisor boot DomU Debian
I think you meant Debian Dom0? I imagine that DomU would be the same AGL Linux image that we would showcase on KVM?
We could use different backends for the block device on each setup, say LVM and qcow2?
Sure
Could we make it more engaging? How much effort would it be to get some sort of graphics up and running?
I was thinking the same thing after the call :-)
I am sure that basic virtio-net and virtio-block would work with the out-of-tree patches for Xen that exist today. Demoing that should only be a matter of setting up an appropriate build with the right patches.
I don't know about graphics though. I am not sure if some sort of virtio-gpu could be made to work with Xen. That is something we could ask the EPAM guys that are the ones developing the patches at the moment.
Maybe I could start a thread to introduce you to them and ask this kind of questions?
Another option would be to passthrough the GPU (direct assignment) to the AGL Linux DomU.
Things to build:
- AGL Linux
- Demo Boxes
- Xen + virtio (out-of-tree)
Thoughts?
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