Re: [Xenomai] Announcing beta x86 Xenomai kernel packages: squeeze, precise, lucid

[John Morris <john@zultron.com>]

On 02/14/2013 01:37 PM, Gilles Chanteperdrix wrote:
> On 02/14/2013 07:05 PM, John Morris wrote:
>> On 02/14/2013 06:15 AM, Gilles Chanteperdrix wrote:
>> I'm hoping that someone else will volunteer to take over package
>> maintenance once the dust settles a little.
> 
> 
> To be completely frank, I hope we find a volunteer for the debian
> packages too... So, actually, we could add such an announce to the wiki.

There's a request for volunteer package maintainers on the LinuxCNC
wiki, but probably not in a prominent enough position.

Once the packages are tested and working, I'll be around to help fix
problems.  However I'm quite eager to pass basic maintenance along to
someone else, so I'm trying to make maintenance as easy as possible to
help encourage volunteers.

When a new Xenomai is released, the steps to update the kernel packages
are simple (I might forget something small):

- Rebuild xenomai package; just a few minor tweaks
- Unpack new vanilla kernel and check out /debian directory from git
- Fix version numbers in new debian/changelog entry
- Update the vanilla kernel .config, either:
  - pull a config verbatim from a similar Debian/Ubuntu kernel package
  - or else update the existing config by running 'make fooconfig'
- Rebuild.  Xeno patch is grabbed from /usr/src, and Xeno config is
    automatically overlaid upon the vanilla config.

I'm also working on a Makefile that will automatically assemble all the
ingredients and build the packages in a chroot (using
pbuilder/debootstrap) for all combos of squeeze/precise/lucid and
i386/amd64.  Whether the next maintainer uses it as is, or sets up a
buildbot or buildd, it should make the job trivial.

>>> We will also try and address the issues which were identified since you
>>> started working on this, namely:
>>> - allowing enabling the SMI workaround without kernel re-compilation
>>
>> Great!  I'm working around this for now by packaging Jan's smictrl
>> utility.  That could actually be sufficient; I'd rather put effort into
>> a more user-friendly wrapper, and maybe a config file and init script
>> for persistent settings across reboots.
> 
> I guess I have some little piece of code somewhere to handle
> configuration files with the "windows ini" style, if you are interested.

I'm interested.  It may sit on the back burner for a little, but if it's
easy for you to find, send it over and I'll certainly borrow from it
when the time comes.

> The kernel-based approach has a big advantage though: recent kernels
> have a driver for the LPC part of the Intel ICH, which is where the
> register controlling SMI is found (drivers/mfd/lpc_ich.c), so, basing
> our work on this driver in the I-pipe kernel, we could share the table
> and avoid the double maintenance.

Is the advantage that the lpc_ich driver has more control than Jan's
smictrl?  Anyway, I don't expect to get to the config/init script for a
bit unless there's a lot of demand for it, so for now maybe I can be
lazy here and wait for you to make the first move.  ;)

	John