[okl4-developer] Platform recommendations

[Josh Matthews]

Hi David,

Welcome to OKL4.

> I have a potential project in mind that requires me to run user-mode ARM
> code on a system with a particular memory layout. I don't need much in
> the way of hardware support; a blocking console will do fine, but I *do*
> need something that will abstract over all the startup procedures and
> MMU nastiness. It occurs to me that L4 ought to do this well, and OKL4
> appears to be the best supported L4 variant for ARM.
>
> Does this sound plausible? (If not, any alternatives?) If so, does
> anyone know of a combination of OKL4 target architecture and simulation
> environment that will Just Work, out of the box? I'm completely new to
> L4 and would really appreciate not having to do a platform port as my
> very first task!

This is definitely plausible. The best ARM architecture and simulation
environment to get started with out of the box is Gumstix (PXA255) with
the Skyeye simulator. Full instructions on how to do that are up at
http://wiki.ok-labs.com/Prerequisites.

> Also, how *little* of OKL4 can I get away with? I don't need Wombat, I
> don't need Posix, I don't need any device drivers other than a simple
> console; the only thing I really want to do is to run single threaded
> user code and service software interrupts (that I believe requires
> another thread). Can I get away with *just* the Pistachio kernel, or do
> I need any more?

Yes, you can use just the OKL4 (Pistachio) kernel. Take a look at the
l4test project in the latest release for an example of how that is done.

Best regards,

Josh Matthews