May 2012 - Pharo-dev - lists.pharo.org

Re: [Pharo-project] FFI in Fedora
by Casimiro de Almeida Barreto May 10, 2012

May 10, 2012

On 09-05-2012 22:15, Schwab,Wilhelm K wrote: > my understanding is that 64 bits are not well supported at this time. > It's probably not what you want to hear, but have you thought of > making a 32 vm on your 64 bit machine? There are several possible combinations: 1) 32bit VM and 32bit image. 2) 64bit VM and 32bit image. 3) 64bit VM and 64bit image. As far as I know, there are no suitable (meaning stable, up to date and maintained) 64bit images. Thus option #3 is quite non-existent unless for image development purposes. It is posssible to have the traditional SqueakVM (stack vm) compiled in 64bit mode. It will work all right with 32bit images. It will interface ok with OS as far as you don't want to make your programs link to external libraries. This bar includes not only FFI but plugins as well. As far as I know, currently CogVM must suffer changes in order to be compiled in 64bit mode. So, option #2 is workable but very limited. It is possible to have 32bit VM and 32bit image provided you have a complete 32bit environment around you. That includes lots of things. For instance, some recent hardware comes with "optimus" technology for scaling GPU functionality depending on load. In Linux there is no support for "optimus" but a "wrap around" solution called bumblebee. Bumblebee allows activating and deactivating NVIDIA GPU by hand by means of a kernel module, a daemon and an application (optirun) but those depend on hardware architecture (i686 or x86_64). Thus squeak/pharo and anything depending on SqueakVM and PharoVM will fail in this environment. But there are lots of other things that depend on hardware architecture that won't work well if you have 32bit VM & image. By the way, currently bumblebee does not support statically linked OpenGL libraries (perhaps because it uses a VirtualGL server that masks OpenGL inside non OpenGL X-Window sessions but I have to further investigate that). Thing is: 32bit architecture is quite dead. There won't be new computers with this architecture (even ARM is 64bit and A15 has an interesting address structure allowing 1TByte memory space). Also, dynamic evolving OSes like Fedora (and even OS X) won't be stuck in the old 32bit model for long. Until 15 days ago the hardware platforms available to me were a 4 years old desktop computer and a 3 years old laptop. Both 32bits. Most of my developments involved interfaces with CUDA stuff (libraries I developed) and Fann (artificial neural network libraries). Then I got "upgraded" (both computers) and nothing is working and I have to choose between trying to fix things and keep working with squeak/pharo or to port everything to java/python/C++. Besides, I think it is opportune to move this discussion to VMdev, pharo and squeak lists. CdAB > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > (...)

1 0

Re: [Pharo-project] on Raspberry Pi
by Marcus Denker May 10, 2012

May 10, 2012

On May 10, 2012, at 3:35 PM, H. Hirzel wrote: > But there are regular VMs for this device, aren't they? > Not automatically build from the latest source on the device itself. So: No. (according to my standards ;-) Marcus -- Marcus Denker -- http://marcusdenker.de

1 0

[Pharo-project] DrGeo Android release
by Hilaire Fernandes May 10, 2012

May 10, 2012

Hello, A small note to let you know we release a free version of DrGeo on Google Play. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.drgeo.android +1 for Smalltalk :) A complete version will follow in a few days. Hilaire & Dimitry -- Dr. Geo -- http://www.drgeo.eu

2 2

[Pharo-project] on Raspberry Pi
by Pavel Krivanek May 10, 2012

May 10, 2012

Hi, one my friend got Raspberry Pi yesterday so I have seen it in action. I had almost no time for experiments but I have seen Fedora 17 on it with standard Squeak (3.10) packages for this distro on FullHD display. On that VM (3.10.5) I got about 40M bytecodes/sec and 1M sends/sec. The environment is not extra fast but usable without problems. I will pray for successful GSoC ARM JIT project :-) The device was connected to the professional meter and the power consumption was about 3.5W. Cheers, -- Pavel

3 3

[Pharo-project] [update 2.0] #20065
by Marcus Denker May 10, 2012

May 10, 2012

20065 ----- Issue 5821: FlatMessageListBrowser broken with class comments http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=5821 -- Marcus Denker -- http://marcusdenker.de

1 0

[Pharo-project] Can OSProcess functionality be implemented using FFI instead of plugin?
by Igor Stasenko May 10, 2012

May 10, 2012

Hi, David, all i just want to know, if we can use FFI calls, for implementing an OSProcessPlugin functionality (or at least most of it). and if there parts which is hard to implement, i would like to know what and why. If you want to ask, why one would want to do this.. the answer is simple: we stated previously, that we want to reduce the VM complexity by implementing things at language side, when it possible, leaving only key parts to VM. This is the main reason why i consider implementing OSProcess using purely FFI, not because of quality of OSProcessPlugin implementation etc. -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.

9 20

Re: [Pharo-project] on Raspberry Pi
by Marcus Denker May 10, 2012

May 10, 2012

On May 10, 2012, at 1:34 PM, H. Hirzel wrote: > On 5/10/12, Pavel Krivanek <pavel.krivanek(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> Hi, >> >> one my friend got Raspberry Pi yesterday so I have seen it in action. >> I had almost no time for experiments but I have seen Fedora 17 on it >> with standard Squeak (3.10) packages for this distro on FullHD >> display. On that VM (3.10.5) I got about 40M bytecodes/sec and 1M >> sends/sec. The environment is not extra fast but usable without >> problems. I will pray for successful GSoC ARM JIT project :-) The >> device was connected to the professional meter and the power >> consumption was about 3.5W. >> >> Cheers, >> -- Pavel >> >> > > Amazing, a 256MB RAM machine with a main board which includes > everything for 35USD. > Some five to seven years ago one would not have believed that this is possible. This especially *screams* for re-considering certain design decisions that we inherited from Smalltalk. 256MB of RAM makes it hard to argue for complex schmemes to save some a little ram. (Compact classes, for example). How would smalltalk look like if it would be re-designed with the same philosophy that they used when there where just 256Kb in the Alto? This is a fun comparision: http://www.raspberrypi.org/ vs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto 1) Price. $35 vs. $35000 (est, not adjusted for inflation). x1000 2) RAM 256MB vs. 256Kb (max was 512, at the end). x1000 3) CPU 1MIPS? not sure. Vs. 700Mhz ARMv11 x 1000 (?) + 3D and MP4 decoder So one could argue that it's a factor of 1 Million considering price and Performance together... Marcus -- Marcus Denker -- http://marcusdenker.de

3 3

Re: [Pharo-project] PHARO_VM on Jenkins
by Marcus Denker May 10, 2012

May 10, 2012

On May 10, 2012, at 2:23 PM, Pavel Krivanek wrote: > Hi, > > I got this error on Pharo Kernel 2.0 Jenkins build: > PHARO_VM environment variable is not set. > > Did somebody some VM related changes on Jenkins? Yes, Christoph is setting up a mechanism that switches automatically to the last compiled (and successfully tested) VM for all jenkins... Marcus -- Marcus Denker -- http://marcusdenker.de

1 0

[Pharo-project] student project: a simple recognizer
by stephane ducasse May 10, 2012

May 10, 2012

Hi guys Here is a topic for somebody that would like to have fun with events. There is a javascript version and it would be cool to have a version for Pharo. http://depts.washington.edu/aimgroup/proj/dollar/ http://www.lifl.fr/~casiez/PJE/OneDollar.pdf It is probably close to Genie but at least the algorithms are clearly defined. Stef

1 0

[Pharo-project] [update 2.0] #20064
by Marcus Denker May 10, 2012

May 10, 2012

20064 ----- Issue 5838: Error: Could not access http://www.squeaksource.com/MetaRepoForPharo20 http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=5838 Issue 5806: Add an encrypted mode on PluggableTextFieldMorph http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=5806 Issue 5712: Do the Icons need attribution? http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=5712 -- Marcus Denker -- http://marcusdenker.de

1 0