Topics

121

Applications and Porting / [GAME] Dolphin emulator works without JIT

« on: April 05, 2020, 07:10:36 am »

Dolphin emulator can be compiled on any LE platform. Because of lacking JIT, the performance is dreadful.

The dev team is not so much interested in support ppc64le at this stage because they do not have access to a workstation.

122

Applications and Porting / [DEV] Docker deb package for Debian buster (resolved)

« on: April 05, 2020, 06:44:29 am »

I've been looking around for the Docker CE (ppc64le) binary for Debian buster. Docker does not offer ppc64le package for Debian (source: https://docs.docker.com/install/linux/docker-ce/debian/)

The only source I could find is this post from IBM https://developer.ibm.com/linuxonpower/docker-on-power/ which has links to Unicamp repository. Unfortunately that repo has old version.

Wondering if anyone know of a maintained repo with up-to-date Docker CE packages?

UPDATE: AFAIK there is no official packages from K8S or Debian, however the new K8S comes witth kubepkg tooling which could be used to build debian packages. Here is the link to built DEB packages https://github.com/runlevel5/kubernetes-packages

Much thanks in advance

123

Operating Systems and Porting / [Help] Create virtual machine based on QEMU / KVM_HW

« on: March 29, 2020, 12:56:55 am »

I am trying to create virtual machine to run Ubuntu 18.04 PPC64LE with QEMU and KVM_HW module.

Below is my config:

Code: [Select]

<domain type="kvm">
  <name>ubuntu18.04</name>
  <uuid>f121409d-6da7-49f2-ba86-e8e87ee26398</uuid>
  <metadata>
    <libosinfo:libosinfo xmlns:libosinfo="http://libosinfo.org/xmlns/libvirt/domain/1.0">
      <libosinfo:os id="http://ubuntu.com/ubuntu/18.04"/>
    </libosinfo:libosinfo>
  </metadata>
  <memory>4194304</memory>
  <currentMemory>4194304</currentMemory>
  <vcpu>16</vcpu>
  <os>
    <type arch="ppc64le" machine="powernv">hvm</type>
    <boot dev="hd"/>
  </os>
  <cpu mode="custom" match="exact">
    <model>POWER9</model>
  </cpu>
  <clock offset="utc"/>
  <devices>
    <emulator>/usr/bin/qemu-system-ppc64</emulator>
    <disk type="file" device="disk">
      <driver name="qemu" type="qcow2"/>
      <source file="/root/.local/share/libvirt/images/ubuntu18.04.qcow2"/>
      <target dev="sdb" bus="sata"/>
    </disk>
    <disk type="file" device="cdrom">
      <target dev="sda" bus="scsi"/>
      <readonly/>
    </disk>
    <interface type="network">
      <source network="default"/>
      <mac address="52:54:00:16:bd:e5"/>
    </interface>
    <console type="pty"/>
    <graphics type="vnc" port="-1"/>
    <video>
      <model type="vga"/>
    </video>
  </devices>
</domain>
When I start the virtual machine, I got error:

Code: [Select]

Unable to complete install: 'internal error: qemu unexpectedly closed the monitor: 2020-03-29T05:54:00.894965Z qemu-system-ppc64: invalid chip model 'host' for powernv9 machine'

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/asyncjob.py", line 75, in cb_wrapper
    callback(asyncjob, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/createvm.py", line 2089, in _do_async_install
    guest.installer_instance.start_install(guest, meter=meter)
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/install/installer.py", line 542, in start_install
    domain = self._create_guest(
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/install/installer.py", line 491, in _create_guest
    domain = self.conn.createXML(install_xml or final_xml, 0)
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/libvirt.py", line 4034, in createXML
    if ret is None:raise libvirtError('virDomainCreateXML() failed', conn=self)
libvirt.libvirtError: internal error: qemu unexpectedly closed the monitor: 2020-03-29T05:54:00.894965Z qemu-system-ppc64: invalid chip model 'host' for powernv9 machine
which is a bit peculiar because my host is actually POWER9 and AFAIK the Sforza POWER9 that Raptor CS offers for Blackbird system does support PowerNV (I could confirm that by grepping for PowerNV in /proc/cpuinfo).

I would like to ask if anyone could give me guidance to troubleshoot this issue. Much thanks in advance

124

Applications and Porting / [GAME] Playstation 1 emulator for POWER platform?

« on: March 26, 2020, 04:45:51 am »

Been wondering if anyone has experimented with any working PSX emulator? I've tried PCSXR which crashed because the Pete's OpenGL plugin got segmentation fault. I also have tried the mednafen emulator with no success (only the bios pops up).

UPDATE:

I managed to get PCSXR and mednafen (compiled from sources) run PSX games

125

Blackbird / Where is the internal USB header pin?

« on: March 11, 2020, 07:53:32 am »

I am a bit lost after the reading the user guide manual v1.0 PDF

On page 30, the J10106 is said to be the internal USB header. Yet... page 22 TPM also points to the same port...?!

126

Applications and Porting / [APP] Discourse now runs on Linux ppc64le

« on: March 08, 2020, 05:59:36 pm »

EDIT: Thanks to the work by lloeki https://github.com/sqreen/ruby-libv8-node/issues/11, Discourse now works out-of-the-box on ppc64le

Discourse is a great forum software which is written in Ruby-based framework Ruby On Rails. At one stage I believe RaptorCS was considering using Discourse however they went with Simple Machines Forums instead because libv8 rubygem does not support ppc64le.

In theory it is possible to build libv8 rubygem for ppc64le linux because the upstream v8 library has supported ppc64. I've spent a bit of time trying to get v8 7.3.495 compiled by substituting Google's toolings (such as cpython, git) with the stock toolings. For more details, please have a look at https://github.com/runlevel5/v8-ppc64le. It's going to take time for me to follow up with the libv8 maintainer to work out a way to set up automated build for ppc64le. For the time-being, we could go with custom-built gem.

Another hurdle that I overcome is to get mini_suffix gem to run on ppc64le. That gem does not ship with libpsl for linux ppc64le. I've created a patch which is waiting for approval. Users could fetch the branch, build the custom gem with `

Code: [Select]

gem build mini_suffix.gemspec && gem install mini_suffix-0.3.1.gem`

 That's pretty much it.
[/s]

127

Applications and Porting / [DEV] Build ppc64le binary for rubyjs/libv8 rubygem

« on: March 08, 2020, 09:26:58 am »

Few weeks ago, I was asking why Raptor did not choose Discourse as the forum platform. It turns out that libv8 gem does not support ppc64le because .... Google does not offer an easy way to build v8 library out of the box.

Well, I've spent 2 days to learn how to get v8 to compile and managed to build custom libv8 gems which could satisfy the requirement of Discourse.

If you are interested in how, feel free to have a look at my https://github.com/runlevel5/v8-ppc64le

128

Applications and Porting / [DEV] How to install Elasticsearch 7.4.2 for Linux ppc64le?

« on: March 01, 2020, 06:53:18 am »

AFIK ES does not officially support PowerPC and I am not aware of any custom distribution that support linux ppc64le.

Because ES is written in Java, that means it is super trivial to get it compiled under linux ppc64le host.

If you are interested in how, please have a look at my build script

129

Firmware / Troubleshooting sshd openbmc host via port 2200 after upgrading to 2.0

« on: February 23, 2020, 01:56:03 am »

After upgrading BMC to 2.0, I could no longer ssh into port 2200 to see serial port output.

I can see that `obmc-console-ssh@0-192.168.1.102:2200-192.168.1.146:56308.service` failed to start in openbmc.

Wondering if it is related to the issue...

Code: [Select]

$ systemctl | grep ssh
● obmc-console-ssh@0-192.168.1.102:2200-192.168.1.146:56308.service   loaded failed failed    Phosphor Host Console SSH Per-Connection (192.168.1.146:56308)


$ journactl -u obmc-console-ssh@0-192.168.1.102:2200-192.168.1.146:56308.service
-- Logs begin at Sun 2020-02-23 07:38:52 UTC, end at Sun 2020-02-23 07:47:44 UTC. -
-
Feb 23 07:43:32 blackbird systemd[1]: [[0;1;31m[[0;1;39m[[0;1;31mobmc-console-ssh@0
-192.168.1.102:2200-192.168.1.146:56308.service: Failed to load environment files:
No such file or directory[[0m
Feb 23 07:43:32 blackbird systemd[1]: [[0;1;39m[[0;1;31m[[0;1;39mobmc-console-ssh@0
-192.168.1.102:2200-192.168.1.146:56308.service: Failed to run 'start' task: No suc
h file or directory[[0m
Feb 23 07:43:32 blackbird systemd[1]: [[0;1;39m[[0;1;31m[[0;1;39mobmc-console-ssh@0
-192.168.1.102:2200-192.168.1.146:56308.service: Failed with result 'resources'.[[0
m
Feb 23 07:43:33 blackbird systemd[1]: [[0;1;31m[[0;1;39m[[0;1;31mFailed to start Ph
osphor Host Console SSH Per-Connection (192.168.1.146:56308).[[0m
Feb 23 07:46:59 blackbird systemd[1]: [[0;1;31m[[0;1;39m[[0;1;31mobmc-console-ssh@0
-192.168.1.102:2200-192.168.1.146:56308.service: Got no socket.[[0m
Feb 23 07:46:59 blackbird systemd[1]: [[0;1;39m[[0;1;31m[[0;1;39mobmc-console-ssh@0
-192.168.1.102:2200-192.168.1.146:56308.service: Failed to run 'start' task: Invali
d argument[[0m
Feb 23 07:46:59 blackbird systemd[1]: [[0;1;39m[[0;1;31m[[0;1;39mobmc-console-ssh@0
-192.168.1.102:2200-192.168.1.146:56308.service: Failed with result 'resources'.[[0
m
Feb 23 07:46:59 blackbird systemd[1]: [[0;1;31m[[0;1;39m[[0;1;31mFailed to start Ph
osphor Host Console SSH Per-Connection (192.168.1.146:56308).[[0m

130

Applications and Porting / [GAME] Attempt to compile Unreal Tournament 4 on Linux ppc64le - in progress

« on: February 22, 2020, 03:25:51 am »

Unreal Tournament 4 is one great game by EPIC GAME which was developed in crowd sourcing model.

The game development was ceased indefinitely however the community has been keeping it going a bit further out of the official EPIC GAME git repo.

I am not a big fan of this game however I am very curious on getting it compiled and run under vulkan mode to test out my AMD Radeon Vega 64 card.

I have been following the guide by Raptor CS https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Software/ThirdParty/Guides/Epic/UnrealTournament4. If I understand the context of that guide correctly, Raptor Engineering's Timothy added support for PowerPC by forking from a community fork which added support for Unreal Engine 4.20.

The first hurdle is to build Unreal Engine 4.20 on my Fedora 32 (rawhide) by following instructions on the https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Software/ThirdParty/Guides/Epic/UnrealEngine

I have got to the steps of compiling libdwarf:

Code: [Select]

cd Engine/Source/ThirdParty/elftoolchain/build/Linux/libdwarf
./build_native
The source code does not include the `build_native` script. I think Timothy forgot to push that script to the repo OR there might be a missing step to generate that script which was not documented.
Either way, I am trying to unblock myself from this issue by learning the similar script for libelf to see if I could replicate for libdwarf.

Wish me luck

131

Applications and Porting / [GAME] vkQuake runs Quake 1 (shareware) perfectly

« on: February 16, 2020, 07:02:40 am »

Yup the vkQuake, vulkan port of Quake runs flawlessly on my Fedora 32 (rawhide) box. The `make` does complain about missing `-lvulkan` which can be solved easily by doing soft link

Code: [Select]

sudo ln -sf /usrlib64/libvulkan.so.1.2.131 /usr/lib64/libvulkan.so

132

Blackbird / Support for POWER9 22core?

« on: February 15, 2020, 09:05:04 pm »

The official product page of blackbird stated that the motherboard support up to 8-core POWER9. Wondering if it is possible to use the POWER9 22core?

133

Firmware / [Guide] How to run firmware temporariliy

« on: February 15, 2020, 09:01:39 pm »

I've been playing around with custom built OpenPower firmware. One tips I pick up from Stewart Smith is to use `mbox` to load the firmware from file instead of mtd:

Code: [Select]

# SSH into OpenBMC
# Load firmware from file
$ mboxctl --backend file:/tmp/blackbird.pnor
$ obmcutil poweron
# once done with testing
$ obmcutil poweroff
$ mboxctl --backend mtd

134

Applications and Porting / [GAME] DevilutionX plays original Diablo perfectly

« on: February 08, 2020, 05:33:52 pm »

Good news! DevilutionX v1.0.1 actually does compile successfully on Linux 5.5.0 ppc64le (my box is Fedora 32 rawhide).

There was one issue with libsodium's Findsodium.cmake script that failed to detect my libsodium which is now resolved in 1.0.1.

The game plays perfectly, I am going to spend sometime packaging this app up and chuck the RPM build to Fedora COPR

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voVUNkfmZcw

135

Applications and Porting / [DEV] Porting homebrew to Linux ppc64le

« on: February 05, 2020, 01:52:08 am »

homebrew is a popular package manager for macOS. I have been using it on my MacBook Pro for more than 10 years. It's simple and 'just work'!

Good news is that homebrew has officially support Linux! But not-so-good news is that they don't support ppc64le architecture. Well not until now, introducing a set of patches to port brew to linux ppc64le, you can see more details at https://github.com/homebrew-ppc64le/brew

I have let the homebrew community know about my work on https://discourse.brew.sh/t/preliminary-support-for-ppc64le-platform/6832 and let's hope they would endorse the ppc64le officially.