Hi Shaz
Yes, a farm remote to developers. I would envision something like:
* Network hub/router * A Linux x86 host(s) with a number of JTAG and USB ports available (via expansion boards if needed, but USB hubs and USB->JTAG adapters should be possible) * A number of ARM boards, with a variety of peripherals. Each ARM board plugged into Ethernet/USB/JTAG as appropriate (or all 3). * Software for a developer to schedule time on a board remotely via the Linux host * Possibly some mechanism to see the output from a LCD, either an adapter board to the Linux host or a webcam pointed at the LCD or something. Other peripherals could be monitored in a similar way. AFAIK ERSA (European Space Agency) do something similar with emulated/real modules hooked together with USB.
Then a developer could develop locally under an emulator, do coarse debugging there, then when ready book time on a real board in the farm for final testing.
I think this should be feasible?
Joel
On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 1:42 PM, Shaz shazalive@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 9:51 PM, Joel Crisp cydergoth@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all
I think people missed one of the points in my email, which is that build
is
only part of the problem. I'm well aware of cross compilation and
emulators
for builds, however neither of these environments provides a fully
capable
*test* environment. This is where a hardware farm is one solution, one
which
wouldn't require everyone who wants to contribute to purchase their own hardware. From my experience porting the remote GDB backend to a custom
JTAG
debug architecture it makes everything much easier to debug in an
embedded
architecture when you can inspect internal state over JTAG. Whilst
emulators
You mean that this farm be remote to developers? Can you please elaborate ...
can provide a good debug environment, they never completely reflect the behaviour of the actual hardware in terms of timing, lockups,
undocumented
behaviour etc.
Thoughts?
Joel
-- Shaz