Hello list,
Today we're announcing a new technical preview of ARM optimized toolchain for Android platform by Linaro[1].
Linaro is a NFP (Not For Profit) organization that aims to make embedded open source development easier and faster. Regardless of Android release cycle from AOSP, Linaro would like to bring the latest and ARM optimizing open source technologies to the common software foundation for software stack, and Linaro toolchain[2] deals with all aspects of system-level tools - the core development toolchain (compiler, assembler, linker, debugger).
In this announcement, the technical preview of ARM optimized toolchain for Android is available for evaluation: (source repository and binary package) https://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/Android/Toolchain
An early activity of the Android Platform Team has been to run the Android benchmark suite to show the gains possible in going from the default Google 4.4 based toolchain to the Linaro 4.5 toolchain. The experimental benchmarks were run on a 600 MHz Cortex-A8 board running Android 2.2: (unofficial, for reference only) https://wiki.linaro.org/JimHuang/Sandbox/LinaroToolchainAndroidBenchmarking
Developers can utilize the optimization techniques from GNU Toolchain and Linaro's ARM improvements through Linaro Toolchain for Android and NDK. For example, skia benchmark[3] brings 11% performance improvements after using Linaro Toolchain.
Linaro's Android platform team plans to deliver the final linaro-11.05 release, and you can check out the status of open development: https://launchpad.net/linaro-android/
On-going Blueprints: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/linaro-android/+spec/linaro-android-toolcha... https://blueprints.launchpad.net/linaro-android/+spec/linaro-android-toolcha... https://blueprints.launchpad.net/linaro-android/+spec/linaro-android-google-...
Sincerely, Jim Huang, Android platform team, Linaro
[1] http://www.linaro.org/ [2] https://wiki.linaro.org/WorkingGroups/ToolChain [3] Linaro uses the same toolchain benchmark as Google compiler team does: https://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/Android/UpstreamToolchain
Hi Jim. Good effort. The Android patch set will be included in gcc-linaro-4.5-2011.04 which is due out today.
We need to discuss toolchain build scripts at the summit. There's a want for builds of pretty much every combination of {Android,Linux,bare metal?} target, crossed with {Native,Cross} builds, crossed with {Ubuntu,Generic Linux,Windows?} hosts. I'll talk with Alexander and Steve and see about a session.
-- Michael
On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 8:13 PM, Jim Huang jim.huang@linaro.org wrote:
Hello list,
Today we're announcing a new technical preview of ARM optimized toolchain for Android platform by Linaro[1].
Linaro is a NFP (Not For Profit) organization that aims to make embedded open source development easier and faster. Regardless of Android release cycle from AOSP, Linaro would like to bring the latest and ARM optimizing open source technologies to the common software foundation for software stack, and Linaro toolchain[2] deals with all aspects of system-level tools - the core development toolchain (compiler, assembler, linker, debugger).
In this announcement, the technical preview of ARM optimized toolchain for Android is available for evaluation: (source repository and binary package) https://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/Android/Toolchain
An early activity of the Android Platform Team has been to run the Android benchmark suite to show the gains possible in going from the default Google 4.4 based toolchain to the Linaro 4.5 toolchain. The experimental benchmarks were run on a 600 MHz Cortex-A8 board running Android 2.2: (unofficial, for reference only) https://wiki.linaro.org/JimHuang/Sandbox/LinaroToolchainAndroidBenchmarking
Developers can utilize the optimization techniques from GNU Toolchain and Linaro's ARM improvements through Linaro Toolchain for Android and NDK. For example, skia benchmark[3] brings 11% performance improvements after using Linaro Toolchain.
Linaro's Android platform team plans to deliver the final linaro-11.05 release, and you can check out the status of open development: https://launchpad.net/linaro-android/
On-going Blueprints: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/linaro-android/+spec/linaro-android-toolcha... https://blueprints.launchpad.net/linaro-android/+spec/linaro-android-toolcha... https://blueprints.launchpad.net/linaro-android/+spec/linaro-android-google-...
Sincerely, Jim Huang, Android platform team, Linaro
[1] http://www.linaro.org/ [2] https://wiki.linaro.org/WorkingGroups/ToolChain [3] Linaro uses the same toolchain benchmark as Google compiler team does: https://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/Android/UpstreamToolchain
linaro-dev mailing list linaro-dev@lists.linaro.org http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-dev
On 21 April 2011 05:54, Michael Hope michael.hope@linaro.org wrote:
Hi Jim. Good effort. The Android patch set will be included in gcc-linaro-4.5-2011.04 which is due out today.
hi Michael,
Thanks! Look forward to new release.
We need to discuss toolchain build scripts at the summit. There's a want for builds of pretty much every combination of {Android,Linux,bare metal?} target, crossed with {Native,Cross} builds, crossed with {Ubuntu,Generic Linux,Windows?} hosts. I'll talk with Alexander and Steve and see about a session.
After checking the build scripts of Google compiler team[1] and NDK[2], the targets are as following: (1) arm-eabi : bare metal, used for compiling Android kernel and (older) userspace (2) arm-linux-androideabi : the primary target in Android
We should migrate to use arm-linux-androideabi since gcc-linaro-2011.04 is expected to include the Android specific patches such as bionic libc linkage.
In my opinion, Android team of Linaro should follow the methods/instructions how Google engineers built toolchain and NDK (the "superset" of toolchain) and continue sending patches to AOSP for merging generic features or improvements.
Yes, I agree with ideas to unify build scripts, but it hard to decide the working items because of uncertainty of AOSP development model.
Sincerely, -jserv
[1] http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=toolchain/build.git%3Ba=summary NOTE: for unknown reasons, I encountered some problems with the original build script written by Google engineers. Maybe due to merge failure between internal tree and AOSP. [2] http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/ndk.git%3Ba=summary
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Jim Huang -
Michael Hope