November 2015 - coreboot - mail.coreboot.org

Re: [coreboot] Coreboot hackaton 2016 (proposal in Paris)
by David Hendricks Nov. 2, 2015

Nov. 2, 2015

On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 12:33 PM, ron minnich <rminnich(a)gmail.com> wrote: > yeah, FOSDEM happens at a very unpleasant time of year. Short days, lots > of rain, cold, ... > > ron > > On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 12:07 PM Vadim Bendebury <vbendeb(a)chromium.org> > wrote: > >> I just looked at the dates - end of January seems a bit odd time to >> visit, cold nasty weather, higher likelihood of air travel delays, etc. Not >> a major consideration, but something to keep in mind when deciding on >> dates... >> > That's actually a very good point. Visitors will likely want to do some sight-seeing and travel complications can really make things unpleasant. Okay, maybe we should just stick with the ELC/ELCE cadence and plan on piggybacking conferences in the US during the spring (April) and in Europe during the fall (October). -- David Hendricks (dhendrix) Systems Software Engineer, Google Inc.

1 0

Re: [coreboot] Coreboot hackaton 2016 (proposal in Paris)
by ron minnich Nov. 2, 2015

Nov. 2, 2015

yeah, FOSDEM happens at a very unpleasant time of year. Short days, lots of rain, cold, ... ron On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 12:07 PM Vadim Bendebury <vbendeb(a)chromium.org> wrote: > I just looked at the dates - end of January seems a bit odd time to visit, > cold nasty weather, higher likelihood of air travel delays, etc. Not a > major consideration, but something to keep in mind when deciding on > dates... > > --vb > > > On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 12:00 PM, David Hendricks <dhendrix(a)google.com> > wrote: > >> On Sun, Nov 1, 2015 at 8:41 AM, <echelon(a)free.fr> wrote: >> >>> Dear coreboot friends, >>> >>> As discussed briefly in the last minutes of the Bonn meeting, I propose >>> to organize the next coreboot hackaton in Paris in 2016. >>> Here is my plan (in broad lines, to be refined subsequently): >> >> >> Sounds good to me! >> >> >>> PS : initially I planned to schedule this hackaton near the FOSDEM 2016, >>> but after >>> some discussions with Ron and Stefan, I realize that maybe this is not >>> the best timeframe.. >>> >> >> Piggybacking on other conferences can certainly help overseas travellers. >> Are there other major conferences later in the year? >> >> Hosting after FOSDEM 2016 actually seems ideal and it will be in Brussels >> (<2 hours away by train, or <1 hour by flight). It is a bit soon after the >> Bonn conference, though but maybe that won't matter? This isn't intended to >> be a big formal event anyway. If you get enough community members in the >> Doodle poll I think you should go for it :-) >> >> -- >> David Hendricks (dhendrix) >> Systems Software Engineer, Google Inc. >> >> -- >> coreboot mailing list: coreboot(a)coreboot.org >> http://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot >> > > -- > coreboot mailing list: coreboot(a)coreboot.org > http://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot

1 0

Re: [coreboot] Coreboot hackaton 2016 (proposal in Paris)
by Vadim Bendebury Nov. 2, 2015

Nov. 2, 2015

I just looked at the dates - end of January seems a bit odd time to visit, cold nasty weather, higher likelihood of air travel delays, etc. Not a major consideration, but something to keep in mind when deciding on dates... --vb On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 12:00 PM, David Hendricks <dhendrix(a)google.com> wrote: > On Sun, Nov 1, 2015 at 8:41 AM, <echelon(a)free.fr> wrote: > >> Dear coreboot friends, >> >> As discussed briefly in the last minutes of the Bonn meeting, I propose >> to organize the next coreboot hackaton in Paris in 2016. >> Here is my plan (in broad lines, to be refined subsequently): > > > Sounds good to me! > > >> PS : initially I planned to schedule this hackaton near the FOSDEM 2016, >> but after >> some discussions with Ron and Stefan, I realize that maybe this is not >> the best timeframe.. >> > > Piggybacking on other conferences can certainly help overseas travellers. > Are there other major conferences later in the year? > > Hosting after FOSDEM 2016 actually seems ideal and it will be in Brussels > (<2 hours away by train, or <1 hour by flight). It is a bit soon after the > Bonn conference, though but maybe that won't matter? This isn't intended to > be a big formal event anyway. If you get enough community members in the > Doodle poll I think you should go for it :-) > > -- > David Hendricks (dhendrix) > Systems Software Engineer, Google Inc. > > -- > coreboot mailing list: coreboot(a)coreboot.org > http://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot >

1 0

Re: [coreboot] Coreboot hackaton 2016 (proposal in Paris)
by David Hendricks Nov. 2, 2015

Nov. 2, 2015

On Sun, Nov 1, 2015 at 8:41 AM, <echelon(a)free.fr> wrote: > Dear coreboot friends, > > As discussed briefly in the last minutes of the Bonn meeting, I propose > to organize the next coreboot hackaton in Paris in 2016. > Here is my plan (in broad lines, to be refined subsequently): Sounds good to me! > PS : initially I planned to schedule this hackaton near the FOSDEM 2016, > but after > some discussions with Ron and Stefan, I realize that maybe this is not the > best timeframe.. > Piggybacking on other conferences can certainly help overseas travellers. Are there other major conferences later in the year? Hosting after FOSDEM 2016 actually seems ideal and it will be in Brussels (<2 hours away by train, or <1 hour by flight). It is a bit soon after the Bonn conference, though but maybe that won't matter? This isn't intended to be a big formal event anyway. If you get enough community members in the Doodle poll I think you should go for it :-) -- David Hendricks (dhendrix) Systems Software Engineer, Google Inc.

1 0

Re: [coreboot] Coreboot hackaton 2016 (proposal in Paris)
by ron minnich Nov. 1, 2015

Nov. 1, 2015

This sounds like a wonderful idea, and I think I would like to attend and help out. On Sun, Nov 1, 2015 at 8:42 AM <echelon(a)free.fr> wrote: > Dear coreboot friends, > > As discussed briefly in the last minutes of the Bonn meeting, I propose > to organize the next coreboot hackaton in Paris in 2016. > Here is my plan (in broad lines, to be refined subsequently): > - the venue would be hosted by the Electrolab, the famous hackerspace in > Paris (www.electrolab.fr) > - this time the meeting would be more of the "hackaton type" as in "come > when you want, stay as much you want and hack as much as you can.." ;-) > - after some preliminary discussions with the Electrolab, the access to > the lab > would be granted during a full week from morning to midnight (except > monday); > - given that Electrolab features some "conference" or "teaching" rooms, > it will > be possible to organize even some conferences (or "lightning talks") but > I do not plan to impose a "tight" schedule, so everyone who is interested > to speak > about something will be able to do so in a "self-organized session" manner > (like those of the CCC Camp 2015); > - for the logistic side : Electrolab can take care for the catering part > (there > is a big kitchen in Electrolab!) but not for the accomodation part. For > this one, > I will take care myself and send a list of suitable hotels later if this > event > will materialize.. > > Now, I would like to know if someone else is interested to organize the > coreboot > hackaton in 2016 (maybe your proposal would be better that mine in which > case I'm > ready to withdraw my proposal!..) and also I invite you to answer the next > Doodle : > http://doodle.com/poll/6udccyrsqtqy2ndt > to have an idea of the number of people interested in this hackaton > proposal. > > Best regards, > Florentin Demetrescu > > PS : initially I planned to schedule this hackaton near the FOSDEM 2016, > but after > some discussions with Ron and Stefan, I realize that maybe this is not the > best timeframe.. > > > -- > coreboot mailing list: coreboot(a)coreboot.org > http://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot >

1 0

Coreboot hackaton 2016 (proposal in Paris)
by echelon＠free.fr Nov. 1, 2015

Nov. 1, 2015

Dear coreboot friends, As discussed briefly in the last minutes of the Bonn meeting, I propose to organize the next coreboot hackaton in Paris in 2016. Here is my plan (in broad lines, to be refined subsequently): - the venue would be hosted by the Electrolab, the famous hackerspace in Paris (www.electrolab.fr) - this time the meeting would be more of the "hackaton type" as in "come when you want, stay as much you want and hack as much as you can.." ;-) - after some preliminary discussions with the Electrolab, the access to the lab would be granted during a full week from morning to midnight (except monday); - given that Electrolab features some "conference" or "teaching" rooms, it will be possible to organize even some conferences (or "lightning talks") but I do not plan to impose a "tight" schedule, so everyone who is interested to speak about something will be able to do so in a "self-organized session" manner (like those of the CCC Camp 2015); - for the logistic side : Electrolab can take care for the catering part (there is a big kitchen in Electrolab!) but not for the accomodation part. For this one, I will take care myself and send a list of suitable hotels later if this event will materialize.. Now, I would like to know if someone else is interested to organize the coreboot hackaton in 2016 (maybe your proposal would be better that mine in which case I'm ready to withdraw my proposal!..) and also I invite you to answer the next Doodle : http://doodle.com/poll/6udccyrsqtqy2ndt to have an idea of the number of people interested in this hackaton proposal. Best regards, Florentin Demetrescu PS : initially I planned to schedule this hackaton near the FOSDEM 2016, but after some discussions with Ron and Stefan, I realize that maybe this is not the best timeframe..

1 0

A case for branching AGESA
by Alex G. Nov. 1, 2015

Nov. 1, 2015

AGESA is a very heavy beast, at over one and a half million lines of code. Although contributions to the AGESA codebase (boards and supporting chipset/cpu code) have slowed down significantly over the years, we still rebuild this behemoth for every version of a patch. This causes quite a bit of strain on our build infrastructure, and even with an army of four state-of-the art build machines, some people (wink, wink, Martin) are concerned with long patch trains and verification times. I can't speak for other machines, but after replacement hardware costs, flying in, and a lost day of work, I've realized that maintaining this infrastructure is not cheap. This made me think if we can make more efficient use of the infrastructure we have available today, and allow builders to use less-powerful machines without increased latency. I've run a few timing tests without AGESA being built, and took historical data to compare build times for when AGESA is included in the build. >From averaging build times on nuclearis2, with a primed page cache and ccache a compete abuild run takes on average, five to six minutes. A build without a useful ccache cache takes around fifteen to twenty minutes (I don't have a reliable way of timing this, hence the high variance). Now, if we build a tree without AGESA, we get the following: First run: [mrnuke@nuclearis2 coreboot]$ ccache -C #clear ccache [mrnuke@nuclearis2 coreboot]$ time CPUS=12 make what-jenkins-does real 6m46.778s Second run: [mrnuke@nuclearis2 coreboot]$ time CPUS=12 make what-jenkins-does real 2m7.889s 7 min vs 20 min on empty ccache, and 2 min vs 6 min on primed ccache. Those are speedups of 2x to 3x. Also note that the local builds were not done on a tmpfs, like the actual jenkins builds. I expect similar speedups on the other builders. The obvious solution is to separate AGESA into its branch. Patch trains from google and other contributions to non-AGESA code gain a 2x to 3x speedup in server time, while users of AGESA can continue to contribute and work on the codebase. Of course, the AGESA branch would also have the non-AGESA boards and code trimmed so as to make efficient use of the server resources. There is some common code, and overlap between the two code paths, but it doesn't seem to be anywhere near as significant as the behemoth that AGESA is. Since 4.2 was just released, we can do this today without much fanare. This also allows other people to donate CPU cycles without needing to own over-priced server-class machines, and without increasing the verification latency (compared to the one today). To anyone saying that putting code in a branch is a death sentence, please don't treat this as TL;DR and read the above paragraphs. Alex

2 1