updated MicroBlaze port, interest?

tyski34 wrote on Wednesday, March 10, 2010:

Although marginally functional, the GCC/MicroBlaze port included with FreeRTOS is tremendously out of date with respect to the development tool chain provided by Xilinx. The original port was done when the ISE tools were at version 7.1, the latest version is now 11.4. The MicroBlaze itself has also changed significantly. In particular, the original port did not support memory caching and relied on OPB devices instead of the now preferred PLB.

I have thoroughly rewritten and updated the port to support the latest MicroBlaze features, be more compatible with GCC’s semantics, and be more compatible with the latest tools included with Xilinx SDK. While I haven’t yet re-created the original demo or packaged the port in a format suitable for inclusion in the FreeRTOS download, I am willing to share the port files with others that may be interested. At some point, I will also try to get the port included with the latest FreeRTOS source download-spare-time permitting.

rtel wrote on Wednesday, March 10, 2010:

Hi tyski34,

This sounds excellent.  Regular readers of this forum will know that I keep saying this….but….I am changing the way that contributed ports are made available.  This is nearly done now, and may hopefully even be available after this coming weekend. 

The plan is to remove the contributed ports from the main download (where they bloat the .zip file size), and instead provide a set of forums (one for each manufacturer) where people can upload their own code themselves.  It is a bit experimental, and maybe even a bit clunky, but hopefully will be successful.

If you can hang on a few days I would invite you to give the new system a try.

Regards.

tyski34 wrote on Wednesday, March 10, 2010:

Since I have the port, I can hang for as long as it takes.

If I may, while a forum sounds like a potential solution, I would probably lean towards a wiki for this type of problem. I can envision a separate wiki page or something for each port and perhaps a wiki category for different manufacturers/compilers. If a wiki, you would want to create a few template “port” pages for people to start from so that the pages look consistent.

That said though, a forum is also good as its easier for people to get support. A combo of the two would be the best though IMO . . .

rtel wrote on Thursday, March 11, 2010:

Yes I agree with you.  The original plan was to use a Wiki, but this turned out to be more complex than anticipated and the cost of hosting the files people uploaded quite high. As time dragged on I opted for a simpler but admittedly less complete solution to ensure it actually got done.  It should work ok, hopefully.

Regards.

rtel wrote on Saturday, March 13, 2010:

The system is now in place for you to be able to upload your code, and provide a little documentation.  Its a bit rough around the edges still, but should work ok.

Relevant links:
http://www.freertos.org/RTOS-contributed-ports.html
http://interactive.freertos.org/forums
http://www.freertos.org/Contributing-files-to-FreeRTOS.html

I would appreciate it if you gave it a go.

Regards.