Re: Help wanted improving Rust support for RISC-V

On Fri, Nov 15, 2024, at 23:47, Alan Somers wrote:
> I want to improve the state of Rust on FreeBSD in general, and RISC-V
> in particular.  My plan is:
>
> * Assemble a corpus of crates heavy on OS stuff (like Nix and Tokio)
> and ensure that their tests pass on Riscv FreeBSD.
> * Update libc's ABI to FreeBSD 12, finally eliminating the need for
> COMPAT_11 on riscv to run Rust programs.
> * Ensure that the corpus of crates still passes their tests.
> * Convince the libc maintainers to use the FreeBSD 12 ABI, for riscv only.
> * After a full Rust release cycle (at least 6 weeks), and maybe two,
> if there are no reports of breakage, and if Poudriere looks good, use
> that as justification to raise libc's ABI for all architectures.
>
> But in order to do any of this, I need access to riscv hardware.  A
> virtual instance at Scaleway[^1][^2] would be ideal, but I don't know
> if FreeBSD can run there.  Has anybody tried it?  Failing that, I
> would need to either acquire some hardware myself, or borrow access to
> somebody else's.  Or, convince some other developer to do the work
> himself.  But I won't be able to help very much if I don't have direct
> access.
>
> Can anybody on this list help me get some access?

I can’t help with scaleway, it sounds like an interesting choice. 

I have no idea of the current state of easily and affordable available hardware. The visonfive 2 might be a good choice, there has been a lot of work in the year since I last tried it. 

https://adventurist.me/posts/00315

It’s probably still the easiest to get hold of if a little underwhelming. 

You don’t mention qemu, is there some reason you can’t start there?

- Tom