Whileone Tech Space

In the world of software development, the GNU Debugger (GDB) is an essential tool for programmers. It allows us to peer inside a running program, find bugs, and understand complex code. As new hardware architectures emerge, it's crucial that our tools keep pace. One such rising star is RISC-V, an open-source instruction set architecture that is rapidly gaining popularity, particularly with its new vector extensions for high-performance computing. The Challenge: An Unknown Ins

The Leap into the Unknown Stepping out of the academic bubble and into the professional world is often painted as a daunting transition. For us, it was less a leap of faith and more an excited dive into the deep end, specifically, into the innovative waters of WhileOne.Our motivation to join was simple yet profound: we sought a place where curiosity was celebrated, challenges were seen as growth opportunities, and real-world impact was a daily pursuit. Little did we know that

Performance analysis can often feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. When your application isn't running as fast as you'd like, where do you even begin to look? Is it a memory bottleneck? Are you stalling in the CPU's front-end? Answering these questions is critical, but traditional tools can be complex and overwhelming. This is where Intel's PerfSpect comes in. And now, thanks to some recent contributions, this powerful tool is no longer just for x86 systems. I'm h

Fuzzing RISC-V compilers like GCC and LLVM is a crucial practice for ensuring the correctness and security of the entire software ecosystem built on this architecture. It's not about finding vulnerabilities in the final compiled code, but rather about discovering bugs within the compiler itself that could lead to incorrect code generation, unexpected behavior, or even exploitable flaws. Why Compiler Fuzzing is a Unique Challenge  Fuzzing compilers is different from fuzzing a

SPEC CPU2017 is a well-known benchmark suite for evaluating CPU-intensive performance. Although it assumes native compilation and execution, there are cases—especially with RISC-V (RV64) platforms—where cross-compilation is the only feasible route. This guide walks through the steps to cross-compile SPEC CPU2017 for RISC-V, transfer the binaries to a target system, and optionally use the --fake option to simulate runs where execution isn't possible or needed during develop

Regression testing   in CI/CD plays a crucial role in maintaining software quality and reliability. Re-running previously executed tests ensures that new code changes do not break existing functionality. Implementing CI/CD in GitLab Since our repository is used by multiple teams, we have implemented CI/CD at the Git level  using GitLab. Our pipeline follows a structured approach, defined in a .yml file. 1. Test Stage When a merge request is created, the following steps are e

Background: ​ For some months, we at WhileOne Techsoft Pvt. Ltd. have been helping our customer setup a system to validate the performance of their SoC platform. In this context, we had to bring up an aarch64 Linux based target image to run on their proprietary hardware SoC platform. Part-1 of this series explains how to build an External Toolchain with BuildRoot. Part -2   of this series explains how to build a Target Linux image and Rootfs in BuildRoot using the External T