Re: [Jikesrvm-core] Next Jikes RVM release

[Ian R. <ian...@ma...>]

Hi again,

it is possible to build a Jikes RVM capable of running Spec JBB 2005 on
PowerPC Linux using the IBM JDK 1.4.2. My prototype Mac Mini 1.4GHz
build achieves 200.10bops with 1 thread. To get this to work it's
necessary for the Jikes RVM classes to not be 1.5.0 classes, so you
don't specify -target 1.5 to jikes. This brings about some class name
changes (as jikes alters its naming convention for -target 1.5 anonymous
classes). I've committed the changes to jconfigure.

It's also possible to run AWT applications on PowerPC Linux but you need
to re-enable pthread support. This means ignoring:
# SMP is not supported on PowerPC/Linux.
# The pthread library doesn't play nicely with RVM since it wants to
# mask the bottom bits of stackpointer to find phtread local storage.
As Classpath implements all its TLS in Java and not in native code, I'm
not sure why we're disabling pthreads on PowerPC Linux. Maybe we should
review this?

So I think the remaining issues are:

1) Linux/IA32 regression
2) JVM (character) identifier parts
3) Miranda method bug
4) better JAVA_HOME detection - not essential
5) Classpath 0.91 and JVM 5.0 hosting - we can build on 1.4.2 JVMs so
this isn't necessary (I'd still like to know what the issue is with
Vectors on J9, but not Sun's JDK :-) ).
6) automatic detection or checking that class initializers get run in
VM.boot - not essential.
7) generic support - this appears to be a reflection problem, there's an
RFE open - not essential

Thanks,

Ian