The issue caused by the OBS worker update on arm builds is fixed by a new qemu.

This new qemu version also has fixed the Fedora 10 @ ARM build problem.

So we have the following working ARM target distros available for ARM: Fedora 10, Debian 5.0 and Ubuntu 9.04.

Have fun.

Its a while since I posted the status about the ongoing work for ARM support in the OBS and for an openSUSE port. It all started with my participation in the OBS development as an external contributor. Then, on Hackweek 2008, we had the idea to enforce a new solution other than the traditional methods of compiling code either natively or via a cross compiler on a host system. The idea was to give build scripts as much of the target enviroment as they need to just work without changes in the packaging definition – in order not to change thousands of package descriptions which define a linux distribution.

A lot happened in the meantime. And I can now report some significant progess in bringing the joys of OBS and openSUSE also to all the ARM users:

To accelerate the openSUSE @ ARM development itself, we want to involve more people of the community. We have an IRC Channel #opensuse-arm for OBS and openSUSE @ ARM – i invite you to visit us there. We will also find a solution to bring the needed changes into the openSUSE Factory codebase so regular build for openSUSE can take place once the base system is working. I will inform you once we have a working base system that can be used to port many other packages. The soon starting Summer of Code Project “Porting openSUSE to ARM platform” is intended as the starting point here.

The next steps are to bring in all the useful applications into OBS, so you have the wide range of applications that is already available for x86 or powerpc then also on ARM. You will see interesting things happening during the next time here. To support this, more and more of the tested ARM targets will be made available also on the public OBS. I will follow up with status updates.

With this message I want to make you aware that the ARM builds inside OBS are currently broken. This is due to an update of the buildservice worker code on Friday. This update removes the limit of 2 GB for the build results from the buildservice. Also, the performance of the buildservice backend code has been improved for high loads with lots of new events.

We are now faced with an incompatibility of the underlying QEMU emulator with this new code to extract the build results in the combination of XEN and QEMU user mode. You can in fact see in your build logs for ARM error messages like:

… saving built packages
/usr/src/packages/DEBS/dsme-tools_0.6mer3_armel.deb
Unsupported ioctl: cmd=0×0002 (0)
FIGETBSZ: Function not implemented
Unsupported ioctl: cmd=0×80041272 (4)

We are working on a solution already. A new QEMU with this and another issues fixed is already under test and has been dropped to openSUSE:Tools:Devel/qemu-svn. I will inform you when we have this fixed in the public build service.

ARM architecture going more to desktop style applications had been in press frequently during the last weeks. On top of were press releases of ARM and canonical officially announcing an ubuntu port in one of the next releases for the ARM architecture. Applications are more of type nettop or advanced PDA like the nokia n810, than what is currently known as traditional embedded applications (just to name a few examples).

This has been due to the fact that licensees of the ARM architecture, big semiconductor companies from the Top 10 list, have begun shipping a new generation of “mobile PC in the pocket” of System on a Chip semiconductors. They include now a really high clocked ARM core, DSPs for Video/Audio processing that can even decode HDTV streams, and OpenGL 2.0 capable HW engine and the peripherials included to build PDAs, mobile phones or nettops. All that within the energy budget of a mobile phone, and not of a Desktop PC. The google G1 phone had been one of the first products of this generation, although its software uses these features only in the beginnings.

What now does this all have to do with the openSUSE Buildservice and openSUSE distribution? As you might already guess it, we haven’t been sleeping either. And I am not a advocate of ubuntu on an .opensuse.org website. So read further what we have done so far.

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There is some good news for you: in cooperation with Marcus Hüwe the download on demand feature is now working seamlessly with cross-build, making it a combined “super feature”.

Also, I have put together a “condensed” cross-build in OBS document in the OBS Wiki Concepts collection.

New OBS cross-build installation packages will be provided inside openSUSE:Tools:Devel soon.

Have fun.

This is the third part of my article series about the Hackweek Project “cross-build in the OBS” and the current OBS development. The first part can be found here, the second here.

What happened in the meantime?

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This is the second part of my article series about the Hackweek Project “cross-build in the OBS”. The first part can be found here.

Before I come back to our Hackweek project, some information about the qemu emulator. As a preparation to Hackweek, I talked with Uli Hecht and Jan Kiszka. Uli Hecht is the Novell/SUSE Maintainer of the qemu packages in openSUSE:Factory/qemu and maintainer of the OBS project Emulators, where every emulator you can imagine is maintained for a couple of linux distributions. Also I consulted Jan Kiszka, one of the reviewers and maintainers of the qemu upstream project about the status of the qemu in general, “User Mode” and status of important architectures specifily.

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I took the chance to meet with the openSUSE Buildservice Developers on tuesday and discuss with them the progress made so far. Although the OBS was not a theme at Hackweek that much, I found two people participating.

Dirk Müller, Marcus Hüwe and me decided to meet at Hackweek to accelerate the development by adding a way to build for architectures, where the buildhost is different from the architecture you are working at. Dirk was inspired by the call of some KDE akademy participants to get the Maemo Project used in the Nokia N810 building and running in OBS. We were all motivated by all the embedded systems out there and a secenario of running embedded openSUSE on them. Also, Adrian told me very often that cross-build is one of the most wanted features requested when openSUSE and OBS is beeing presented at an event.

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