[microblaze-uclinux] Microblaze/uClinux port

[John Williams <jwilliams@itee.uq.edu.au>]

Dear Friends,

I am writing to you because you have previously expressed an interest 
in, or a desire to be involved with, the port of uClinux to the Xilinx 
microblaze processor architecture.

The purpose of this email is to update you on the status of the project, 
and invite you to join a new mailing list devoted to this effort.

Status:
-------
It is now possible to boot a basic uClinux kernel on one specific 
microblaze target, which I have dubbed "mbvanilla".  Clearly, the 
ability to target arbitrary microblaze hardware configurations is a 
major long-term goal of the project.

I have submitted a series of patches to the uClinux source maintainers 
for inclusion in their CVS tree that will allow others access to the new 
code.  When this is available I will notify the mailing list (see below).


Work to be done:
----------------
The port is incomplete and experimental.  There are several loose ends 
to be tied up before it can be considered "working", and even more 
before it will be anything approaching "stable".

In the short term, the following remain outstanding:
  - elf2flt and bin_fmt_flat userland binary support
  - testing and completion of uClibc C library support
  - a root file system (romfs)
  - general kernel testing and debugging
  - proper integration into the uClinux kernel build system

Longer term, we need to get a stable core of applications built and 
tested on the new platform, as well as networking support and much more. 
  Further, there is a general desire to integrate or at least 
interoperate the kernel configuration process with the Xilinx platform 
generation tools.

Mailing list:
-------------
While there is a dedicated and active uclinux mailing list 
(uclinux-dev@uclinux.org), I have taken the step of creating a 
microblaze/uclinux specific list.  It is my intention for this list to 
operate for a maximum of six months, or until the port is stable enough 
that the participants can migrate to uclinux-dev.  If it is appropriate, 
I will post a weekly digest of our new list across to uclinux-dev.

To subscribe, send an email to majordomo@itee.uq.edu.au, with the 
following as the body of the message:

subscribe microblaze-uclinux

Follow the instructions in the reply email, then you will be on the 
list.  I expect it will be quite low volume, but would love to be proven 
wrong!

Finally, if you know of anybody else who might be interested to join 
this project, then please feel free to forward this message to them as 
you see fit.

I have very high hopes for this work, and think that there lie ahead 
many exciting opportunities for uClinux on the Microblaze platform.  Any 
involvement, no matter how small, will be welcomed and appreciated.

Thank you,

John Williams
-- 
Dr John Williams, Research Fellow,
Reconfigurable Computing, School of ITEE
University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Ph : 61-7-3365-8305