Create gem5 v23.1 Staging branch

[BobbyRBruce]

As discussed and agreed upon during our November Developer meeting (https://github.com/orgs/gem5/discussions/482), we have scheduled the creation of our staging branch from develop for December 1st. This means gem5 developers have until December 1st to have their contributions merged into develop for inclusion in version v23.1. Contributions made after this deadline will have to wait for the v24.0 release.

Once created the staging branch will be tested rigorously and our release procedures followed. The branch shall exist for at least 2 weeks in order to run tests and give the community time to inspect the branch. Once the staging branch is found to be ready for release it shall be merged into the stable branch thus officially releasing gem5 v23.1. Assuming a typical 2-week staging branch period this release to occur on December 15th.

Contributions to the staging branch via pull request are permitted but, in the interests of ensuring new bugs are not introduced, good justification should be given as to why the change cannot wait for the following release (v24.0). Usually contributions to the staging branch are bug fixes or contributions that have no chance of changing software functionality (e.g. documentation updates, format fixes, etc.). New features or significant enhancements to gem5 should continue to be made to the develop branch during this time. The staging branch will be periodically merged into the develop branch to ensure contributions made to the staging branch are reflecting in the develop branch,

I have highlighted the following must be included in v23.1 and will therefore be prioritized for review and inclusion into the staging branch:

• All tests (CI, Daily, Weekly, and Compiler) to be passing.

If there is anything I have missed, or you create a new PR you believe needs to be prioritized for inclusion in v23.1, please reply to this thread to let me know.

Edit: The following are PRs That we would want in the next release:

• stdlib: Fix the chi protocol of arm boot tests #658
• sim: Rework the Linux Kernel exit events #639
  • arch-riscv: Add PCEvent for RISCV FS Workload kernel panic/oops arch-riscv: Add PCEvent for RISCV FS Workload kernel panic/oops #573
• Fix for gem5 Issue #550 #636
• configs,stdlib,tests: Remove get_runtime_isa() configs,stdlib,tests: Remove get_runtime_isa() #241
• [ ] arch-riscv: adding new instruction types to RISC-V cpu,arch-arm,arch-riscv: adding new instruction types to RISC-V #589
• [ ] WIP: Add Clang format misc: Add Clang format to pre-commit #362
• Features/bootloader workload stdlib integration stdlib: Integrate BootloaderKernelWorkload #630
  • arch-riscv: correctly pass arguments to kernel with new bootloader+kernel #635

The following Issues we would like to fix in the next release (these issues are the ones with no PR):

• Can not build tlm with ARM Can not build tlm with ARM #591

The following PRs will unfortunately not be in the next release:

• util: Added cli tool for gem5 resources util: Added cli tool for gem5 resources #305
• WIP: GPUFS stdlib board WIP: GPUFS stdlib board #352
• arch-arm: add Sve mla and mls indexed arch-arm: add Sve mla and mls indexed #596

Ok to be cherry-pick to staging:

• util: Added script to copy resources from mongodb util: Added script to copy resources from mongodb #510
• stdlib's ArmBoard does not support KVM stdlib's ArmBoard does not support KVM #612
• stdlib: Updated release notes for version 23.1 misc: Add release notes for version 23.1 #447
• Update RISCV kernel and refactor stdlib to use the new kernel and bootloader workload. Update RISCV kernel and refactor stdlib to use the new kernel and bootloader workload. #616

Tasks that have been completed

• Add KConfigs (scons: Change to Kconfig build system #69)
• misc: Add gem5_build/ to .gitignore #642
• mem-ruby: Unused L3CacheCntrl freed mem-ruby: Unused L3CacheCntrl freed #598
• misc, stdlib: Update documentation to adhere to RST formatting. misc, stdlib: Update documentation to adhere to RST formatting. #631
• resources,stdlib: update suites to lazy download resources,stdlib: update suites to lazy download #609
• systemc: Bugfix in TlmToGem5Bridge #615
• Support for classic prefetchers with Ruby controllers (Support for classic prefetchers in Ruby #502).
• misc: Fix precommit install #634 gem5 pre-commit hooks installation failed #633
• Support for classic prefetchers in Ruby Support for classic prefetchers in Ruby #502
• arch-x86: Fixes page fault for CLFLUSH on write-protected pages arch-x86: Fixes page fault for CLFLUSH on write-protected pages #592
• misc,python: Add isort hook to pre-commit misc,python: Add isort hook to pre-commit #431
• arch-riscv: Support combination of privilege modes configuration arch-riscv: Support combination of privilege modes configuration #522
• scons: Add an option to reduce memory usage of ld scons: Add an option to reduce memory usage of ld #601
• stdlib, resources: removed deprecated if statement in obtain_resource for workload resources stdlib, resources: removed deprecated if statement in obtain_resource for workload resources #611
• sim,python: Restore sigint handler in python sim,python: Restore sigint handler in python #531
• dev-amdgpu: Writeback PM4 queue rptr when empty dev-amdgpu: Writeback PM4 queue rptr when empty #597
• arch-x86: Fix misc registers in mov instructions arch-x86: Fix misc registers in mov instructions #593
• cpu: Require BTB hit to detect branches. cpu: Require BTB hit to detect branches. #493
• tests: fix lulesh tests: fix lulesh #600
• ext,github,tests: Update DRAMSys tests to v5.0 and handle new dependencies ext,github,tests: Update DRAMSys tests to v5.0 and handle new dependencies #577
• scons: Change to Kconfig build system scons: Change to Kconfig build system #69
• stdlib: Mv resource download to get_local_path and add ShadowResource #625
  • misc: update x86-npb-benchmarks.py to use suites misc: update x86-npb-benchmarks.py to use suites #587
  • misc: update gapbs example to use suites misc: update gapbs example to use suites #607
• arch-riscv: fix o3 cpu stuck in spinlock bug #641 O3CPU stuck in spinlock after switching CPU during multi-core simulation under riscv architecture #487
• mem-ruby: Fix compile error in chi-dvm-funcs #646 fixes compiler tests
• arch-arm: Only build ArmCapstoneDisassembler when ISA is arm arch-arm: Only build ArmCapstoneDisassembler when ISA is arm #553
• Potential bug in TLB lookup Potential bug in TLB lookup #484 : I made a PR for the issue arch-riscv: fix tlb bug arch-riscv: fix tlb bug #610
• Pottential Bug in low_power_sweep.py Pottential Bug in low_power_sweep.py #590

[abmerop]

Not sure if resources should be discussed here, but I'd like to upload the kernel for this new disk image as a resource: gem5/gem5-resources#12 . Alternately I can attempt to figure out how to copy from the disk image out using packer to obtain it that way.

[BobbyRBruce]

Not sure if resources should be discussed here, but I'd like to upload the kernel for this new disk image as a resource: gem5/gem5-resources#12 . Alternately I can attempt to figure out how to copy from the disk image out using packer to obtain it that way.

Resources can be added at any time. They doesn't need to be in prior to the staging branch, or even prior to the release. However, I've noted down we should look into this (I'm quite bad at checking in on the gem5-resources PRs).

[Harshil2107]

Adding #484 in to-dos for 23.1. Should I edit the original message?

[powerjg]

Can you add 487 to this list?

Also, can you edit the original message?

[Harshil2107]

I edited the original comment and deleted my comment.

[abmerop]

Hi all, I believe the staging branch hasn't been created yet, is that correct? I will guess it is due to the tests failing. Let me know if I can help out, in particular any X86 / GPU related failures

[BobbyRBruce]

Hi all, I believe the staging branch hasn't been created yet, is that correct? I will guess it is due to the tests failing. Let me know if I can help out, in particular any X86 / GPU related failures

Just created it! https://github.com/gem5/gem5/tree/release-staging-v23-1

There was a small delay (as always), but it's created now. I'm going to create a separate Issue to track the health of the staging branch and what may need cherry-picked.