Vincenzo Pellegrini wrote: > hi everybody, > > It would be incredibly useful to me if somebody could suggest a link to > some resources explaining all that has currently been achieved by using > "GNURadio over Fedora over PS3", and how much advantage does the current > GNURadio release take of the cell processor architecture. > > Is it necessary to rewrite our applications to have them efficiently > running on the cell? > > really thanks in advance > > vincenzo > >
Vincenzo Have you been the gnuradio trac pages on installing FC7 and GnuRadio on the Cell? I run the FM Stereo as a demonstration remotely (so the desktop code is not taking extremely scarce main memory) and it runs just fine. This is one of the more complex pieces of code. The new OFDM code (still in branch and not checked in) would be another. NONE OF THESE use the SPE's yet but they run on the PPU's (the Power PC). We are definitely working on the PS3 in a big way. I am happy to announce that today I completed the UPGRADE from FC7 to Fedora 8. I first uninstalled CellSDK 3.0, did the upgrade, and then installed. What I was checking was to see if the install would proceed without complaint. It proceeded to completion and I have built gnuradio using CellSDK 3.0 running under Fedora 8. The only trouble I ran into at all was caused by not carefully checking the FC7 installation page before I followed it blindly. If you followed those instructions some time ago and added the fedora development repository, you will find that your system is littered with FC8 and FC9 candidate packages. This took me a day to clean off but then the upgrade proceeded without incident after I managed to return the state of the code to full F7 compliant. (ARRRRGGGHHH). I ran into a problem attempting to BOOT the F8 PPC DVD iso. It fails utterly. Since I could not see a way around this, I proceeded to do the update. That would have taken a couple of hours, primarily downloading rpm's, had it not been for the mistake in recommending the development repository. F8 runs just fine with a customized PS3 kernel. I have customized it to allow NFS mounting for cross compile and to remove LOTS of memory hogging junk that will never be on the PS3. The kernel I run on the dual blade machines at work is necessarily different because it has the Axon 30 or 40 Northbridge, all spe's and the ability to support cards through firewire, USB, PCIe, serial ports, etc. In all cases, the only way to go on the PS3 is cross compile and to install a minimal kernel after it is up and running. This saves memory on the PS3 (only 256 MB) and reduces the compile DRAMATICALLY. On tests run on the PS3, it is extremely capable of handling very wideband signals IF WE CAN GET THEM INTO THE MACHINE. We will be able to do many Mbaud signals, well into the tens of Mbaud. HDTV should be a cakewalk and barely exercise the processor once that code is written. There is a problem currently that I can only assume will be remedied over time. The Gaelic GigE driver STINKS. It can barely sustain 100 baseT full duplex rates. I understand there is a proprietary driver that shows great speed but I cannot predict how long this will take for the existence of this to have an impact on the open source driver. The complaints about its existence are real enough! The FFTW support for the Cell is weak. You can see this in the benchmarks of the FFT on the FFTW Cell alpha page. The numbers are way off base. The cell is capable of much more, even with six SPE's only. Eric is looking carefully at this with some initial indication that much more can be done. This is getting attention and it is my belief we will be delivering some very nice apps in the next few months for the PS3. I make no predictions on which or when. Ciao! Bob -- AMSAT Director and VP Engineering. Member: ARRL, AMSAT-DL, TAPR, Packrats, NJQRP, QRP ARCI, QCWA, FRC. ARRL SDR WG Chair “An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?” Descartes _______________________________________________ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
