Hi Peter,
On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 03:29:53PM -0800, Peter Lindener wrote:
Yes getting Genode to run on your "shiny new Lenovo x260" would be a good thing!... here, basic leading edge platform support seem critical if the Genode community is to attract (and keep) more capable developers. I recently invested in a DELL XPS 15.. as the x250 suggested at the time only came with 16Gig of ram.. so if there is a Laptop hardware list that supports Genode development, I will help make it happen, but it would be great if supporting the DELL XPS 13, 15 were on the Genode development ToDo: list.
There is an unofficial hardware-compatibility list maintained by Josef Söntgen at http://usr.sysret.de/jws/genode/hcl.html that gathers what we, Genode Labs team, tested and also other Genode users reported. This said, hardware compatibility is already a kind of community effort and I doubt the Genode team in Dresden will be able to extend their efforts to enable specific x86 devices considerably more. If you like to help to enable the XPS 13/15, you are very welcome to post detailed hardware specifications, report which devices work currently and which don't as well as provide more information to help others to support you.
I find encouragement that Genode already supports the Zynq_7000 SOC. Then it might be good to support at least one of the most common ARMv8_64 bit targets... most likely the Raspberry Pi 3..
The Raspberry Pi 3 is fairly appealing platform and we also discussed to add support to Genode during some coffee breaks. For me the topic has two main questions: 1) What could be the main motivation to support the RPi 3 (or any other ARMv8 device)? 2) If we add support, to which extend (regarding peripherals) should we support the platform and can we avoid regressions in the future.
Both questions have much room for personal opinions, but for me the main motivation (1) can only be that I myself (or any other active participant of the Genode community) likes to use the device in a reasonable application scenario. Then regarding (2), the required support for peripherals is also defined and the user of the platform will naturally test the device, which uncovers regressions. Do you have an application scenario in mind?
Regards