A Linux-based tool for hardware bring up, Linux development, and manufacturing

Authors:
T. Venton;M. Miller;R. Kalla;A. Blanchard
Affiliations:
IBM Server and Technology Group, 11400 Burnet Road, Austin, Texas;IBM Server and Technology Group, 11400 Burnet Road, Austin, Texas;IBM Server and Technology Group, 11400 Burnet Road, Austin, Texas;IBM Linux Technology Center, 8 Brisbane Avenue, CA03 Barton ACT Australia 2600
Venue:
IBM Systems Journal
Year:
2005

Citing 2
Cited 1

Accelerating system integration by enhancing hardware, firmware, and co-simulation

IBM Journal of Research and Development
POWER4 system microarchitecture

IBM Journal of Research and Development

Exploring the effects of on-chip thermal variation on high-performance multicore architectures

ACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimization (TACO)

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Abstract

In this paper we describe Bare Metal Linux (BML), a cut-down version of Linux® 2.6 that requires no firmware, has an in-memory root file system, and runs without a virtualization layer. We designed and implemented BML in order to accelerate the bring up of POWER5TM-based systems. The use of BML allows testing and validation of the POWERS-based system to be conducted in parallel with the standard path, which involves the bring up of a hypervisor, the partition firmware, and the operating system. BML, which has fast boot times and can be modified quickly, is used in fault detection during chip manufacturing, POWER5 chip verification, system-board verification, and benchmarking for performance. BML is also used to reproduce and resolve problems in Linux.