Hello and thanks for the detailed response! I wasn't aware that a Linux host could compile for Haiku as a target, that's interesting.
Seems like the big tasks are:
1) Haiku VM for continuous integration. Is this hosted in Amazon or other cloud infrastructure?
Take a look at, for example, the make vm-build-freebsd target (see tests/vm/Makefile.include). It downloads
the latest FreeBSD images, boots it with a serial console, walks through the install of the base OS, then
installs the packages needed for qemu to build and kicks off a build and runs some acceptance tests
afterwards. OpenBSD, NetBSD and several Linux distributions have similar setups. I think it would be
useful for there to be one for Haiku as well, so any developer could run these tests either in response to
a bug report in their code, or to make sure things work on/with Haiku. All of this is done locally.
There's a separate issue for creating a Haiku runner for gitlab, but I know little even about the FreeBSD
runner.
2) Supporting aspects of the qemu code relevant to Haiku.
I'll take a look at that Wiki page to get a feel for things, and I've started with the compilation of the latest code from the repo on Haiku, addressing some issues as they come up.
I am a huge fan of both projects, but also am doing this in my own time. I'm a developer professionally, but working on Haiku & qemu during off hours (though timely shouldn't be a problem). How are things communicated for this project (in regard to your request for someone who can help in a timely manner)? It seems that the vast majority of the mailing list is patch information. What's the primary way for code to be contributed, a merging code though Gitlab or via emailed
Emailed patches.
https://wiki.qemu.org/Contribute/SubmitAPatch has all the details, though the volume of patches means that you really want to make sure that you CC the maintainers of the code listed in the MAINTAINERS file when submitting patches to help ensure they do not get list.
Warner
On 25/06/2021 06.12, Richard Zak wrote:
> Hello there! I noticed the message which appears when building qemu on
> Haiku. I'd hate for Haiku to lose qemu, so I would like to help!
>
> What is needed in terms of a build system for continuous integration? I'm
> not familiar with CI systems, other than simply knowing what they do.
Hi,
since a couple of month, we already have a Haiku VM in our VM tests, so the
basics are already there - it's possible to run a Haiku build test on a
Linux host by typing:
make vm-build-haiku.x86_64
However, it's still in a quite bad shape, the disk image that is used in
that VM is not big enough for compiling the whole QEMU sources. So somebody
needs to add some additional logic there to either increase the disk image
on the fly or to add a second free disk image to the VM that could be used
for compilation instead. If you want to have a try, have a look at:
tests/vm/haiku.x86_64
Also, I'm not sure whether Peter is using this VM already in his gating CI
tests? I guess not, due to those size limitations...
Finally, we'd also need somebody who's proficient with the Haiku APIs and
who could help with problems in a timely manner, i.e. we'd need an entry in
the "Hosts" section in the maintainers file. It should be someone who's
basically familiar with the QEMU development process, so if you're
interested, I'd suggest that you try to contribute some patches to QEMU
first to get a basic understanding of the process (see e.g.
https://wiki.qemu.org/Contribute/BiteSizedTasks for some easier tasks), and
once you feel confident, you could add a Haiku entry to the MAINTAINERS file.
Thomas
--
Regards,
Richard J. Zak
Professional Genius