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maxeler / MaxAppTemplate

A cookiecutter template for quickly bootstrapping a Maxeler gallery app from the command line.
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Should binaries of non DFE projects under APP be stored in the repo? #17

Open mikeiz404 opened 9 years ago

mikeiz404 commented 9 years ago

Is it expected that all binaries in the APP folder should be stored in the repo or just the DFE binaries?

If so, should non-DFE binaries be put under PLATFORMS/GENERIC/binaries/? If not, what is the reason for generating the DFE project binaries?

alixedi commented 9 years ago

@ntrifunovic can elaborate I hope.

ntrifunovic commented 9 years ago

The reason for generating/storing DFE project binaries for various platforms (cards) is AppGallery.

Binaries do not need to be hosted on GitHub, but they do need to be uploaded to the AppGallery.

The idea was to allow owners of the MAX cards to download the binary and test the application without the need to compile it from source, compilation could take a lot of time and appropriate Xilinx or Altera licences are needed.

@mikeiz404 @alixedi Hope this helps :smile:

mikeiz404 commented 9 years ago

Thanks @ntrifunovic. For apps which have multiple binaries in APP should those be prebuilt for the app gallery as well? For example the packet capture application has a DFE binary for capture and a CPU only binary for remote writing of the capture data.

Just a heads up the TCP networking also requires a runtime license even with a generated binary. This requirement can be removed from the maxfile after it is built but I doubt this is ok to release publicly. I think this only affects the packet capture app and http web server. Not sure about network sorting.

mikeiz404 commented 9 years ago

By the way It looks like linking maxfiles into binaries should not require any licenses once the maxfiles have been generated. Linking the maxfiles should also be pretty quick (no longer than a standard software only compile I think).

ntrifunovic commented 9 years ago

Yes, linking with maxfile should be quick.

It is also possible to generate object file from the maxfile using sliccompile and then use that object file to create binary from your CPU code.

mikeiz404 commented 9 years ago

Hey @ntrifunovic should apps which have multiple binaries in APP be prebuilt for the app gallery as well? My guess would be yes for the AppGallery so that no compilation is required for the end user.

ntrifunovic commented 9 years ago

Yes.

If there are multiple binaries they should be pre-built, tar balled with README file on how to use them and uploaded to the AppGallery website.

On GitHub we should have code with or without pre-built binaries (binaries could be too big, etc.). On the AppGallery website (appgallery.maxeler.com) we should have pre-built bundles for different cards and link to the GitHub repo with the app sources.

@alixedi What do you think?

mikeiz404 commented 9 years ago

:+1: