Create a QEMU/development focused kernel

Registered by Michael Hope

Linaro currently uses an old, ARM Versatile based kernel for host based development. This hardware is no longer available and has some severe limitations such as a maximum of 256 MB of RAM. Create a new kernel image and perhaps QEMU platform designed for using as a fast emulated host.

Blueprint information

Status:
Complete
Approver:
None
Priority:
Low
Drafter:
Michael Hope
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
Peter Maydell
Definition:
Superseded
Series goal:
None
Implementation:
Unknown
Milestone target:
None
Completed by
Michael Hope

Related branches

Sprints

Whiteboard

Note: michaelh1 marked this as 'superseded' as we'll use a XM model instead.

This system shall be used:
 * As a Launchpad buildd host for automatically building ARM based packages
 * As a development host on a developers machine

Focus on system emulation.

Some of the features should include:
 * virtio based including block and network
 * virtfs for sharing files with the host without networking
 * configurable to at least 2 GB of emulated RAM
 * configurable to use multiple host cores, perhaps through exposing multiple emulated cores
 * a upstream kernel .config that is stable and easy to reproduce

Status:
Please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WorkItemsHowto for a description of how to fill out the whiteboard for tracking purposes.

This is too far down the priority list to be done in this cycle; also there are not currently any good (fast CPU, lots of RAM, PCI, already modelled or easily modelled) boards that we could base this on, and without device tree support a "pure virtual" system is unlikely to be supported by the kernel. So there is no list of work items yet.

MLH changed this to low priority as a 1 GB BeagleBoard XM model is close enough.

Effort: 1-2M
Tags: community

(?)

Work Items

Work items:
Please add work items: TODO

Dependency tree

* Blueprints in grey have been implemented.

This blueprint contains Public information 
Everyone can see this information.