[kaffe] avr32 port

[Guennadi Liakhovetski]

On Thu, 8 May 2008, Nevo wrote:

> Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
> > On Thu, 8 May 2008, Nevo wrote:
> >   
> > >    There has been a crazy idea for me to  embed kaffe VM or phoneme CDC vm
> > > to
> > > Linux kernel as a separate module to speed up vm execution,so vm can
> > > directly
> > > access hardware. But you know,that should break up the role of JVM as a
> > > sandbox...... and we chould not prove the feasibility yet...
> > >     
> > 
> > Yeah, don't think the kernel crowd would be particularly inspired by this
> > idea:-)
> >   
>   Maybe Java OS might be more specific and practical :) . Anyway ,it is on my
> ToDO list.

You are late (at least on AVR): 
http://www.harbaum.org/till/nanovm/index.shtml

> > >    Now I saw your idea, I guess you mean JIT on AVR32 ?
> > >     
> > 
> > Well, in "Java Technical Reference" from Atmel they call it "Java Extension
> > Module (JEM)".
> >   
>   if you wanna do hardware acceleration ,we could consider libJIT which is
> mentioned Kaffe document.

Well, I'm not an expert in this, but I don't know if this really would 
make any improvement. With hardware acceleration you "just" throw your 
bytecode at the CPU and it processes it just as if it were native code. 
So, I don't see how JIT could be useful here. Also, it is unlikely to make 
our work easier, or would it? I'd go as simple as possible to start with.

> > > I've been as a JVM developer for mobile & CE devices. Maybe I would be
> > > glad to help you make you do a port to AVR32 ,but I am in China,the AVR
> > > board might not be easy to find in public market ..
> > >     
> > 
> > That sounds very good! Now, after I've written my first email to the kaffee
> > ML, I found JamVM, which is smaller, and is already ported to AVR32! In pure
> > software mode, of course. So, I think, we could start with that one. If you
> > prefer kaffee, you are certainly most welcome to try to port it over too! We
> > anyway have ti first get it run in software mode, before implementing
> > hardware acceleration.
> >   
>    Yep,both Kaffe and JamVM are good thing to learn. What kind of applications
> would you want to run on  AVR32?

Ideally none:-) As I said, I'm just interested in the idea per se. Will 
see how it comes out.

> On low-end devices,enable JIT would be expensive.

Ok, then we better forget it (for now at least).

>    Now that JamVM is working on AVR32,maybe we need some benchmark or
> something.
>    I have said that I would be glad and interested to help a fresh port on
> AVR32 ,so i think  JamVM would be fine..:)

Good! Then I would suggest to move further discussion to the jamvm list 
(https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jamvm-general). I'll write 
there with CC you and attach a very slightly cleaned up avr32 patch for 
JamVM from Leen Toelen.

> > As for the hardware - as I said, as soon as I get the board, I can provide
> > an ssh login to it to you or any other interester parties. I could even
> > provide a serial console, if that will be needed too. I think, this should
> > be enough for the beginning.
> >   
>  That would be great....  There should be many experts here.....:)

I'll let you know when the board arrives.

Thanks
Guennadi
---
Guennadi Liakhovetski, Ph.D.
Freelance Open-Source Software Developer