Linux for Xtensa Development Snapshot 20080711
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DOCUMENTATION

See doc/build.html for build instructions.


VERSIONS

The sources included here were created with the following commands:

git clone git://git.linux-xtensa.org/buildroot/buildroot-xtensa buildroot
cd buildroot && git checkout 16f39dfdde4b3e57cd36203858734d58be1b8f1b

git clone git://git.linux-xtensa.org/kernel/xtensa-2.6.24 linux
cd linux && git checkout ce5325b68b148c88426a71d2f0951816ad1d14da


LIMITATIONS

Kernel highmem support is not implemented, which limits available
system RAM to 128 MB.


CHANGES SINCE THE MOST RECENT SNAPSHOT (of 2008-01-23)

FEATURES

The Linux kernel was updated to the official 2.6.24.4 release (plus Xtensa
patches).  The buildroot sources were updated with upstream changes up to
around 2008-01-28.

The following features were added:

 1. Support for oprofile.
 2. Support for the HiFi2 audio demo using mplayer (for the LX200 board).
 3. Support for the new Xtensa configuration overlays introduced in RB-2008.3.
 4. Kernel support for building U-Boot bootable images. (**)
 5. Rudimentary kernel support for dispatching medium-priority interrupts.
 6. Kernel sanity check of the compare-and-swap (s32c1i) instruction.
 7. Move to binutils 2.18 (was 2.17.50.0.17).
 8. Build GDB and C++ by default.
 9. Support for NFS mount (build portmap and enable RPC in toolchain by
    default).
10. The default set of packages are included (pre-downloaded) in the buildroot
    /dl/ subdirectory, avoiding the need to download them from the Internet
    (which does not always work reliably).  This assumes the buildroot build
    instructions included in this snapshot are followed, without selecting any
    extra optional packages.

(**) A preliminary port of U-Boot is available, accessible using GIT
    as follows:

    git clone git://git.linux-xtensa.org/git/u-boot/u-boot-xtensa.git u-boot


BUG FIXES

Kernel:
 - Fix boot parameter parsing
 - Fix 'make headers_install'
 - Fix coprocessor context switching
 - Fix ptrace handling of register windows (for GDB)
 - Fix icache flush for cache aliasing

Buildroot:
 - Adjust for move from subversion to git
 - GDB patches: improve frame handling, and fix ptrace handling
 - GCC patch: backport patch to config/xtensa/xtensa.c
   (xtensa_secondary_reload_class)
 - uClibc patch: fix ftruncate64
 - strace patch: match the new kernel
 - Fix miscellaneous packages to they can build correctly for the Xtensa
   architecture (avahi, bind, boa, dbus-glib, dbus, kismet, libevent, libogg,
   libvorbis, libxml2, libxslt, ltrace, netsnmp, openntpd, psmisc, libgtk2,
   libglib2, fontconfig, strace, lighttpd, x11)
 - Fix patch mechanism to work in the presence of Perforce