Re: [gentoo-dev] PowerPC Resources at OSU

[R0b0t1]

Hello,

There are multiple replies below.

On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 11:43 AM, Matthew Thode
<prometheanfire@g.o> wrote:
> I have access to it (can spin up servers and whatnot), but it doesn't
> sound like that's what you are looking for (needing a non-virtualized
> system).  What specific features are you looking for?
>
> Are you looking for rack space to put a donated IBM system in or what?
> I'm not certian what you are looking for.
>

My apologies, I tried to be comprehensive in my original post but it
may have come out confused. I felt as if I did something bad and was
trying to make sure I told someone right away, like my parents taught
me.

I am looking to verify that my request for shipping reimbursement
could not be made superfluous. It looks like physical access to a
system is necessary to continue doing most of the novel things I am
interested in.

Firstly I want to interact with the system firmware. This may only be
possible with POWER8 systems. With the failure of the TALOS
workstation crowdfunding effort it looks like I will not be able to do
this soon. I intend to see what I can do to reverse engineer the
motherboard firmware on a donated Power6+ system if/when I receive it.
Secondly I wish to instrument PowerKVM and the newer PowerPC
hypervisor functions, specifically related to processor power
management, processor configuration, and memory model. The user mode
SIMD/decimal128 instructions are also extremely interesting. Lastly I
would like to run a Tinderbox targeting ppc64(le) to try to follow up
on some build failures I've been having.

On the systems I have access to at the moment I have been caught up in
prefix/RAP failures while trying to set up a development environment
otherwise I would have started following up on my latter interests.

A shell account on a ppc64le machine running Gentoo would likely be
enough. It would save me a lot of time. Otherwise I can wait until I
receive a donated Power6+ machine, some way or another.

> I'm on irc (as prometheanfire) if you want to talk.
>

I will try to remember that, but unfortunately I have less time to be
on IRC now. Setting up a bouncer is on my list and I will get to it.


On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 1:37 PM, Robin H. Johnson <robbat2@g.o> wrote:
> Have you seen this page on this wiki?
> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Infrastructure/Developer_Machines
>
> Did you reach out to anybody there for access?
>

No sir, my apologies for my confusion. I am not very smart and it has
been hard to find information that might aid me in contributing to
Gentoo. Much to my dismay useful information is usually available. I
genuinely do not mean to ask useless questions.


On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 3:30 PM, James Le Cuirot <chewi@g.o> wrote:
> As of a few months ago, we have two POWER8 guests, one big endian
> (timberdoodle) and one little endian (bogsucker). We would just have
> one but you can't mix big and little endian on the same system.
>
> After the old POWER7 timberdoodle died, I was responsible for creating
> these new instances with some help from prometheanfire. Replacing
> CentOS systems that had tied up all the storage from the other side of
> the world with no direct raw access was an interesting challenge!
>
> I didn't intend to manage the systems long term though as I only use
> them for building and testing Java stuff. I consider prometheanfire,
> blueness, and vapier to be in charge though you may struggle getting
> hold of the latter two.
>
> We generally only give access to devs but I am aware of one exception
> we made for gnu_andrew, who works for Red Hat and provides our icedtea
> ebuilds. Unfortunately I've only seen you on this list but hopefully
> someone can vouch for you. I don't know whether these guests will be
> suitable for your needs though.
>

I understand. Requesting resources on behalf of Gentoo was a line I
was not willing to cross myself. It seems I misunderstood what
desultory told me to do.

The best I can offer is an explanation for what I wish to do and how
it may end up impacting Gentoo in a positive way. Already my "work"
(attempting to run bootstrap-rap.sh) on GCC112, GCC's ppc64le Linux
system, has led to a number of bugs for the prefix and RAP projects.
If I had use of a Gentoo ppc64le system I would likely be able to
increase the stability of those architectures as I attempt to do
normal things. This is the basis I used to request shipping
reimbursement for a donated POWER6+ server.

The tracker has some bugs I have submitted and others I have commented
on (I would link to them but I haven't figured out how to find all
bugs by me, or all bugs that I have commented on). There are people
who would recognize my name but as I said before, now a line has been
crossed. I do not want to make anyone feel like I am cornering them.


Respectfully,
     R0b0t1