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New to Cell Broadband Engine technology
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RedHat Fedora Core 4. | | |
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It may work on other Linux distributions, but it is tested and certified to run in Fedora Core 4 only. | | |
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Operating systems: RedHat Fedora Core 4
Computer: 2 GHz x86 machine; the faster system, the better.
Hard disk space: 5 GB (minimum) for installing the source package and the accompanying development tools
RAM: 1 GB (minimum) on the host system (less if not using XL C) | | |
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- cbe_linux: Contains the source code and build rules for
- Linux kernel (Version 2.6.14) (vmlinux required by systemsim)
- libspe (required by SDK examples)
- ramdisk: Contains the rules needed for building a sysroot_disk. A sysroot_disk is a ramdisk that is needed by the simulator. It is built from RPMs (located in /opt/PPC-FC4/rpms), environment-specific config files found in ramdisk/custom, and SDK example programs found in sysroot.
- src: The directory for samples and library source code. See the README.txt file in the src directory for further information.
- systemsim-cell-release: The simulator.
- docs
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Yes. The IBM System Simulator requires libtk8.4.so. You will see the following message when you run the simulator if this package is not installed on your system:
systemsim-cell-release/run/cell/../../bin/systemsim-cell: error while loading shared libraries: libtk8.4.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.
In order to get that package, you must do a "yum install tk".
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XL C is a C-language compiler supplied by IBM. The version shipped with the Cell BE SDK is compiled to run on Fedora Core 4.
Source code for the compiler is not available. | | |
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systemsim is a Cell BE simulator that emulates the behavior of a Cell BE system. The version shipped with the Cell BE SDK is compiled to run on Fedora Core 4. See the docs subdirectory for complete documentation. Internally within IBM, the simulator is known as mambo. This name may appear in some of the documentation.
Source code for the simulator is not available.
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From within the simulation environment, you would use the callthru utility. This program is located in /usr/bin.
Usage: callthru [exit|sink|source] ...
Examples:
- callthru source /tmp/foobar>foobar
This command copies /tmp/foobar from the hosting file system into the current working directory in the simulation environment.
If foobar is an executable, you should use "chmod +x foobar" prior to running it.
- callthru sink /tmp/foobar
This command copies foobar, the current working directory in the simulation environment, to /tmp/foobar from the hosting file system.
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First, try to do a "yum update selinux-policy-targeted".
If that doesn't work, please change your selinux policy from enforcing to permissive. Edit /etc/selinux/config; then press /.autorelabel and reboot. This failure happens on some systems but not others. The exact source of the problem is unknown at this time. The problem is not related to the CBE SDK; any attempt to do a dd/mkfs fails.
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- Installation script: install.sh
- Kernel patch: cell-linux-patches-1.0.tar.bz2
- GCC and tools: toolchain-2.3-i686.tar.bz2
- Simulation environment:
ppc-fc4-rpms-1.0.0-1.i386.rpm
systemsim-cell-1.0-fc4-x86.tar.bz2
- SPE management library source code: libspe-1.0.tar.bz2
- XL C Compiler:
xlc-cell-cmp-1.0-1.i386.rpm
xlc-cell-lib-1.0-1.i386.rpm
- Sample/library source code: cell-sdk-lib-samples-1.0.tar.bz2
You must put all these packages into the same directory and run the install.sh script.
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Fedora 4 on x86 | | |
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The Cell BE architecture-related and software-related documentation on the developerWorks Web site includes all architecture books, as well as all different ABIs and language specifications.
The Cell BE development tool-related documentation (Simulator, XL C, GCC, binutil) is located in the individual packages.
All Cell BE sample/library-related documentation (library, libspe, IDL, README.txt files) can be found in the downloaded SDK package under docs/.
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GCC is an open-source compiler. XL C Compiler is a prototype based on IBM's world-class compilation technology for Power Architecture™ providing the same advantages for CBEA processors. It supports a subset of GCC extensions and provides industry-leading optimizations that maximize application performance through inter-procedural optimization, auto SIMDization, etc.
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In the build environment provided through the library/sample/workload package, you can edit the make.env file and change theSPU_COMPILER and PPU32_COMPILER to "sce" for the SCE GCC compiler or "xlc" for the IBM XL C Compiler.
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The first time you run the install.sh script, you must be root so that the RPM packages will get installed. In fact, anytime you are going to re-install or update one of the RPM packages, you must be root. Subsequent installations will detect the presence of packages that must be installed as root and prompt you to re-install. If you are not root, then select No on every package, and the installation and building process will continue.
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You must change your selinux default to "permissive" and re-label your files. Take the following steps:
- Edit /etc/selinux/config, changing your policy from "enforcing" to "permissive."
- Press /.autorelabel.
- Reboot.
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The README.txt file in the directory of the sample source code usually provides instructions for running the sample. A sample may need an input data file in order to run properly. | | |
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Yes; all the test programs, samples, and workloads, except the two programs Oscillator and vse_subdiv, have been tested on real Cell BE hardware. Oscillator and vse_subdiv need special simulator support and, therefore, cannot run directly on a hardware system. The new applications developed by this cross-development environment will be able to run on real Cell BE hardware. | | |
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You can post questions on the Cell BE forum on IBM developerWorks. The Cell BE programming community uses it for exchanging information.
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The Cell BE SDK requires
- freeglut-devel-2.2.0-16
- xorg-x11-devel-6.8.2-37.FC4.45
In order to pick up these packages, do the following:
"yum install freeglut-devel"
"yum install xorg-x11-devel"
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