Linux development on embedded PowerPC 405 Jarosław Szewiński

Agenda System generation Difficulties Booting the kernel Features Performance Applications Future Plans

System generation

Difficulties Some parts of PowerPC computer system (like interrupt controller) are defined in FPGA This flexibility causes problems when there is mismatch between hardware and drivers versions PPC 405 Linux distributions are dedicated for only for few evaluation boards with unique hardware.

Booting the kernel Over the JTAG, using XMD – this solution enables debugging the CPU, used mostly at the laboratory development. Over TFTP – when boot loader is placed in BRAM memory of Virtex II Pro From the SystemACE Compact Flash card – solution available on ML310 development board In the future, on our board, kernel will be also downloaded over the VME bus

Features NFS-Root – one file system for many PPC instances Kernel level network autoconfiguraton (DHCP, RARP, nfs-root location, etc.) Linux booting time less than 10 sec. (to login prompt, including DHCP autoconfiguration, and nfsroot mounting) Possibility of swapping over the NFS may increase virtual memory size (the cost is lower performance)

Performance iterations of PPC (200 MHz)Sun (650 MHz) Integer * integer1,47 s0,37 s Integer + integer1,36 s0,34 s float * float36,22 s0,43 s float + float32,21s0,43 s

Applications Channel library for Matlab use TCP server, diagnostic command line tools Kernel driver PPC compatible Internal Interface FPGA core by Wojciech Jalmuzna Virtex II PRO Linux on PPC Hardware FPGA II Core Matlab on remote machine Kernel mode Internal Interface bus driver User mode TCP server TCP/IP

Future Plans Communication improvement Algorithm development on PPC Extending the Linux distribution (drivers, libraries, utilities ) Porting DOOCS for PPC Linux Investigations on FPU for Virtex II Pro