Re: [LTP] [Automated-testing] Call for nommu LTP maintainer [was: Re: [PATCH 00/36] Remove UCLINUX from LTP]

Bird, Tim
2024-01-09T22:38:31Z

> -----Original Message-----
> From: automated-testing@lists.yoctoproject.org <automated-testing@lists.yoctoproject.org> On Behalf Of Cyril Hrubis
> Hi!
> > But as I said, if anybody from nommu decides to maintain it in LTP, I'll try to
> > support him in my free time (review patches, give advices). And if nobody
> > stands, this patchset which removes the support in the old API will be merged
> > after next LTP release (in the end of January).
>
> Let me highlight this part, we are eager to help anybody who is willing
> to pick the nommu work, but we do not have resources to drive it.

I have a couple of comments here.

I think it would be good to give a little bit more time to try to find a helper/maintainer
for this. As Rob pointed out, a lot of embedded Linux developers are using very old
kernels (and, if they are using LTP, likely very old versions of LTP). They are also
notorious for not being active on the mailing lists. So this might take some active
outreach to find helpers. (I realize that this thread is part of this
outreach effort). For this reason, I'd like a few more weeks to try to advertise this
need within the embedded Linux community.

I am not using nommu systems myself, so I'm in a similar position as Petr in terms
of it not making much sense for me to be the maintainer. However, having said that,
I have had for a few years now an idea for a background project related to LTP
that might make this a more interesting fit for me. Sony uses NuttX, and is considering
using Zephyr in some of our low-end processor systems. This includes some nommu
systems. For some time now, I have wanted to experiment with using LTP to test
the compatibility of those systems with the Linux system APIs. In full disclosure,
I have no idea if this is a feasible or useful idea or not. But it's something I'd like
to investigate.

I realize that testing non-Linux RTOSes is out-of-scope for LTP. But given that that is
something I would like to do, and that it might be relevant to the Linux nommu tests,
I would humbly request a few weeks to investigate this before the nommu code is removed.
This delay would be to see if it would make sense for me to volunteer to help out with
maintaining this otherwise abandoned code.

I can't promise anything, but I'd like to find out more about:
1) what parts of the current LTP are not supporting nommu (what's currently broken),
2) how much code we're talking about, and
3) what the desired roadmap going forward would be, to continue to support this code.

Thanks,
-- Tim