Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 09:25:42 +0800 From: Ganbold Tsagaankhuu <ganbold@gmail.com> To: Alexander Tarasikov <alexander.tarasikov@gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, "freebsd-arm@freebsd.org" <freebsd-arm@freebsd.org>, "Wojciech A. Koszek" <wkoszek@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: [GSoC 2014] Interested in ARM bringup tasks Message-ID: <CAGtf9xNLMiZDu4LAaX84f_cOHUMGPu6qmGZdcsnyA8QJuvwWug@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <CAMChaFxpQ_Rnv7EuYj7ytorBTLgXLv4RcXxyW28aj8bw-NYbpg@mail.gmail.com> References: <CAMChaFxz7t6-UAUL50CsC9vDE%2BubG=9aBYwEy2hSinLWtoDaDg@mail.gmail.com> <CAGtf9xNrxgfgPmzpkYWSNcDsArm5oWxBZ-KQjMmGwJUJ-djFdQ@mail.gmail.com> <CAMChaFxpQ_Rnv7EuYj7ytorBTLgXLv4RcXxyW28aj8bw-NYbpg@mail.gmail.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Alexander, On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 9:13 AM, Alexander Tarasikov < alexander.tarasikov@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 4:39 AM, Ganbold Tsagaankhuu <ganbold@gmail.com> > wrote: > > Alexander, > > > > > > On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 7:19 AM, Alexander Tarasikov > > <alexander.tarasikov@gmail.com> wrote: > >> > >> Hello, FreeBSD community! > >> > >> I am interested in participating in GSoC this year and I'd like to > >> pick up one of the tasks related to porting FreeBSD to new > >> architectures. I'm now doing my master's degree in software > >> engineering at the "Higher School of Economics" in Moscow. > >> > >> Since I love ARM and smartphones, I've chosen the project to port > >> FreeBSD to a smartphone. If that task is already occupied (which > >> doesn't seem so), I would be happy to pick up another task suggested > >> by the community. > >> > >> I want to port FreeBSD to the Sony Xperia Z phone. This phone has the > >> Qualcomm APQ8064 SoC which is used in a large number of smartphones, > >> including Google Nexus 4. Besides, Qualcomm SoCs are developed > >> incrementally so there's a high chance that the code for current > >> generation of chips will benefit future revisions as well. > > > > > > Interesting. I'm not quite sure how accessible is some pins like uart in > > Experia Z. > > I have it here, but I still didn't try to open it yet to see the pins > etc. > > Probably you meant here some embedded boards like ifc6410. > > Plus ifc6410 has docs so that could be useful too. > > > > Yes, that's the trouble with mobile phones - getting UART is hard. On > the other hand, > having pre-initialized framebuffer also helps in most cases. The problem > with > ifc6410 board is that I don't have one and even if someone wants to send > me one, I may have huge trouble with customs. > > I personally have the Xperia Z phone, and I don't really want to *buy* > another one > (because it looks like I have far more hardware than I have time to > play with it) > I may be able get my hands on an OMAP4-based Galaxy Nexus. Maybe someone > from Moscow could lend me some hardware. If I get stuck with Xperia, I may > exchange it for a Nexus 5 on a local craiglist since it's also qcom > but has UART. > > > > >> > >> > >> It is known that debugging like JTAG and flash recovery is not > >> available on consumer devices because of DRM and general love for > >> obfuscation among the vendors. Therefore, to prevent bricking the > >> device, > > > > > > That is the hell, it seems Qualcomm uses lauterbach jtag adapter in that > > case. > > I and my friend and also some people have tried some adapters like > > flyswatter2 with ifc6410, still no luck. > > > >> I suggest using the chainloading approach, that is using the > >> bootloader that ships with the device and pretend to be a linux image. > > > > > > That can be done. Their bootloader like maybe LK in case of ifc6410 can > boot > > freebsd kernel. > > Actually I did that for ifc6410. > > I have not investigated how FreeBSD boots yet, but iirc LK only supports > linux > (at least it did 3 years ago when I ported it to msm7200A). Since you > have a working > kernel for ifc6410, I could try using it first. If it at least boots, > we can ignore the > UART and go straight into writing mmc block drivers. > > Even if you write mmc driver you still need full functioning uart driver (kernel+userland), that makes debugging easier at least and yet it allows to see all the boot messages and you know for sure you get login prompt :) Ganbold > > > >> > >> > >> For the mid-term I want to port the u-boot bootloader and add the > >> support for accessing the microSD card from it. The u-boot will be > >> flashed to the device instead of the linux kernel. > > > > > > > > That could be cool. > > > >> > >> > >> Since the proprietary bootloader already initializes the display (we > >> can also port linux driver to u-boot), it should be possible, at least > >> during the initial stage, to use a simple driver in FreeBSD that would > >> write to the framebuffer allocated by the bootloader or only write the > >> framebuffer address to the display controller. > > > > > > > > That is nice. However first we need uart driver, then either usb ehci, > mmc > > or sata driver needs to mount rootfs in order to boot freebsd to > multiuser > > mode. I already have timer driver and minimal console driver so it makes > > booting little bit easier. > > Well, since GSoC wiki clearly states the task to port to a phone, the > only acceptable > route is mmc (usb is complex and anyway it is unacceptable to have a phone > tethered to the laptop all the time). I think a phone is a good target from > the marketing point of view, though it is not much different from a > development board. > > > > >> > >> > >> In the past I've successfully ported linux to an Intel XScale-based > >> Asus P525 smartphone, ported Android with all hardware working to boot > >> from NAND on the Sony Xperia X1 phone and have ported various boards > >> from OEM to vanilla kernel trees. Recently I've experimented with the > >> XNU kernel (the one which is used in the fruity operating system) and > >> ported it to the OMAP5 board. So I think I'll be able to pull it off. > > > > > > Cool. In case of android or linux there are many people working on > various > > stuffs so in most case drivers are either written or somebody has got > > started working on particular driver already. For FreeBSD case it is > > different. You maybe know that very few people are working in case of ARM > > platform bringup, so we need more developers and I'm happy that you > decided > > to work on this direction. > > So I'm waiting for an opinion from the community. What is more desired - a > phone > port or a new SoC/board support? I have OMAP5432 development board, but > as you may know there are no phones with that CPU and there will never > be. On the > other hand, this board is > 1) Similiar to OMAP4 > 2) Has SATA and USB 3.0 > So if this hardware is supported it can potentially be interesting to > evaluate the performance > of a server-like installation on ARM A15 SoC. > > > > > Ganbold > > > > > >> > >> > >> Have a nice day! > >> > >> -- > >> Regards, Alexander > >> _______________________________________________ > >> freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list > >> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers > >> To unsubscribe, send any mail to " > freebsd-hackers-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > > > > > > > > -- > Regards, Alexander >
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?CAGtf9xNLMiZDu4LAaX84f_cOHUMGPu6qmGZdcsnyA8QJuvwWug>