Re: Xen Developer Summit BoF Notes : Seeding a Xen + Android / Embedded ecosystem BoF

[Dario Faggioli <dario.faggioli@citrix.com>]

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On mer, 2013-11-20 at 18:00 +0000, Lars Kurth wrote:

> == Platforms ==
> # The overall agreement in the BoF was that Android on Xen should be 
> platform agnostic
> # aka support ARM as well as Intel (e.g. many Android tablets in China 
> are Intel based)
> 
32 or 64 bits (I'm talking mostly of the Intel ones)?

> == Pieces missing for Embedded (non-Android) ==
> # Soft-Real-time support - note that this was in the original Xen ARM 
> port - see [[Xen_ARM_(PV)]]. But it didn't make it across to the Xen on 
> ARM support. 
>
Was it? Didn't know that, and I don't see much about it in the archived
Wiki page. It's not that important as the project has been archived, but
it'd be nice to see what was there, and what and why it didn't survive,
I think.

> Also see a related more general thread at 
> [http://lists.xenproject.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2013-11/msg02536.html 
> xen-devel].
>
Yep, have a look and share you thoughts there too! ;-P

> # Hard-Real-time support: a US government standard / RT kernel / OS was 
> mentioned. In my notes it says '''Arine7''' ... but this is obviously 
> wrong as google does not find anything.
>
Would it be possible for it to be ARINC653
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARINC_653)?

If yes, it's an hard real time scheduler we have in Xen. It's very
special purpose and static so, although it's very good at its job, I
doubt it would fit here. In any case, although it's definitely good to
have ARINC (typically for avionics workloads), what I think we should
aim at is something more general, more flexible, and yet no less hard
real-time. Some (non mutually exclusive) alternatives are putting SEDF
back in operation and looking at what the Real-Time Xen people have and
try to upstream it (and both these are being worked on and discussed in
the thread referenced above).

> == Mechanics of Bootstrapping a Community ==
> # Lists
> ## The general consensus was that it would be a bad idea to create a new 
> list. Discussions should happen on xen-devel
> ## However some attendees were concerned about the volume of traffic
> ## Threads related to ANDROID on xen-devel should be tagged with ANDROID
> 
> [Aside: I am wondering, whether a more low-volume list for bigger and 
> longer-term developer discussions may be helpful. We have done this in 
> the past and all the lists in question (IA64, ARM, ...), but over time 
> these lists had to be culled when the developed features became 
> mainstream. There have also been some discussion recently about the 
> amount of traffic on xen-devel becoming a little painful. I am just 
> putting this one up for debate, but this would probably grant a separate 
> discussion. ]
> 
I thought about something similar (having a dedicated list) when
starting the thread about real-time and embedded too. Personally, I like
everything happening in xen-devel, but, if the main purpose is
bootstrapping, and if that, for instance, would buy us people that
wouldn't subscribe to xen-devel anyway (because of the amount of
traffic), well, I'd seriously consider having the list.

> # Meetings / Calls
> ## A monthly or less frequent open call would help
> ## Action Lars: write up minutes {{Tick}}, send out to all attendees and 
> get the ones who'd be interested to reply whether'd be interested
> 
If we're doing it, I'd be interested.

> == Missing non-code pieces to speed up adoption ==
> 
> # Sharing of information andf helping each other
> ## This comes back down to the list / meeting /calls part
> 
Indeed.

> # Lack of documentation
> ## Step 1: create an embedded and android category on the wiki (and post 
> these notes). Created http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Category:Embedded 
> and http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Category:Android {{Tick}}
> ## Somebody to Volunteer to create a '''Getting Started with Xen on 
> Android''' on the wiki
>
Zero experience with Android, but I'm willing to learn, so, I at least
volunteer for helping. Then, if nobody more experienced steps up, I'll
upgrade my commitment. :-)

Regards,
Dario

-- 
<<This happens because I choose it to happen!>> (Raistlin Majere)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dario Faggioli, Ph.D, http://about.me/dario.faggioli
Senior Software Engineer, Citrix Systems R&D Ltd., Cambridge (UK)


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