OpenPower/PowerPC/ppc64le port: major concerns and obstacles
Hello seL4 devel! Recently I was on the developer hangout meeting and brought up a ppc port. Interest seemed low, and some even called ppc a “niche” architecture which seems unfair. There was also the much more concrete concerns of funding and overall maintenance. I believe an PPC port would be very valuable, and I plan to do a whole essay/write up of some sort, but I am also not the most familiar with the technical challenges, and could use more information on those. I do think there is definitely people who would want to run seL4 on PowerPC platforms. PowerPC is one of the few ISAs that has existing, modern hardware without closed-source binary blobs, which I believe pose a real threat to the trustworthiness of the hardware seL4 is currently capable of running on.
On Wed, 6 Apr 2022 at 13:44, Isaac Beckett
Hello seL4 devel! Recently I was on the developer hangout meeting and brought up a ppc port. Interest seemed low, and some even called ppc a “niche” architecture which seems unfair.
There was also the much more concrete concerns of funding and overall maintenance. I believe an PPC port would be very valuable, and I plan to do a whole essay/write up of some sort, but I am also not the most familiar with the technical challenges, and could use more information on those.
I won't be online tonight, but I +1'd you then and I'll +1 you now. What sort of powerpc hardware are people using and able to develop for? I really only know of game consoles, and with the exception of the PS3, these tend to be so locked down that people don't seem to port other operating systems to them. I know that Raptor Talos workstations are quite nice and not so expensive when you compare them with the current state of RISC-V systems that are actually usable as desktops, but they are still out of reach of many hobbyists. IIRC someone (Gerwin?) recently did a breakdown of the costs of a port to a new architecture, including costs of verification. I guess the challenge is finding someone for whom that cost is well worth it. -- William ML Leslie
participants (2)
-
Isaac Beckett -
William ML Leslie