MPSS and Red Hat / CentOS 5.x

[javiroman]

Hello!

I've a set of machines with Red Hat 5.x I've been thinking if it would be possible to try a backporting of drivers and tools of MPSS. I know probably the most dificult task would be fit the kernel drivers based on Red Hat 6.x distro (Linux kernel 2.6.32) into the Red Hat 5.x kernel version (2.6.18).

Do you think this task is waste the time? Is it worth spend time in this backporting, or do you think is a verty difficult task?

Many thanks.  

[Sumedh_N_Intel]

Hi Javi, 

You are correct in thinking that the hardest part will be backfitting to the 2.6.18 kernel. It is theorectically possible to backport, but it would need a very good knowledge of the Linux drivers.There will probably be issues with drivers on both, the host and the coprocessor. So if you do this, be prepared to have development on both the coprocessor side and the host side Linux. 

Also, I am not up to speed on the difference between 2.6.18 and 2.6.32. It's possible that we rely on some of those differences in our driver. 

Lastly, it is difficult for me to answer if this is a waste of time or not. It's a judgement that you will need to make. 

Thanks, 

Sumedh

[TimP]

Among the reasons CentOS 5.x would not be tested is that it doesn't support capabilites of current host CPUs such as AVX instruction set.