Problems with pthread on ARM/PXA270

Mon Sep 21 17:19:53 EDT 2009

Greetings All,
   As noted below, we experienced a problem on Linux 2.4.x kernels for ARM when running pthreads.  
   Thanks to Daniel @ CodeSourcery for assistance in getting my .so to link properly with my application.

My results are:  I do NOT see the same problem as seen on the Linux 2.4.x kernel.  When creating pthreads when calling a .so, they get created correctly and return to the "main" to continue execution.  
The test platform is:  ARM Realview EB with ARM11MPCore CoreTile using the "stock" ARM released 2.6.28 SMP built kernel.

We use real-time threads with FIFO ordering and set the priority as we define in our application so that everything works correctly.  

Regards,
Stephen Beckwith

-----Original Message-----
From: linux-arm-kernel-bounces at lists.infradead.org [mailto:linux-arm-kernel-bounces at lists.infradead.org] On Behalf Of Beckwith, Stephen (Stephen)
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 8:47 AM
To: schindele at nentec.de; linux-arm-kernel at lists.infradead.org
Cc: Eric Miao
Subject: RE: Problems with pthread on ARM/PXA270

Greetings All,
  I will quickly add the following to this thread, as it seems related.
Platform:
  Custom ARM9 SoC using Montavista Linux Release 3.1, a 2.4.21 Linux Kernel.  Montavista tool chain and libraries.

Problem:
  When we try and execute a pthread_create, "when loaded as a .so", the thread will be created, but will not "return" to the main thread for further processing, we basically get "stuck" in this  new thread.  In the "real" case, this is an ISR thread, would hang on waiting for an interrupt.  For testing, I use Sleep and prints to document program flow.
   However, IF I use the "exact same code" and build the program as an application, it works just fine dandy. . .   The thread gets spawned, prints it's initial hello, then goes into the while (1) sleep/print incrementing value loop.  The thread returns to the "Main" and we spawn 2 more threads and they work just fine (based upon interleaving printouts)

NOTE:
  For our "normal" development we use an external host processor (PowerPC based) to control the SoC and the ability to create threads from a .so has worked in this setup (using same MVL 3.1 kernel/toolchain) for the past 4+ years on 10's of platforms. So we suspected some issue/problem with the MVL setup

Now, we are migrating to a new ARM11 based SoC and I am in the process of re-testing this functionality.  
This new platform will be based upon 2.6.28 kernel release and CodeSourcery G++ Lite 2008q3-72 tools/libraries.
I'm in the process of setting this up on an ARM RealView EB.  

Details to follow.

Regards,
Stephen Beckwith

-----Original Message-----
From: linux-arm-kernel-bounces at lists.infradead.org [mailto:linux-arm-kernel-bounces at lists.infradead.org] On Behalf Of Juergen Schindele
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 3:36 AM
To: linux-arm-kernel at lists.infradead.org
Cc: Eric Miao
Subject: Re: Problems with pthread on ARM/PXA270

Am Mittwoch, 16. September 2009 schrieb Eric Miao:
> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 11:01 PM, Juergen Schindele <schindele at nentec.de> wrote:
> > Am Mittwoch, 16. September 2009 schrieb Eric Miao:
> >> Don't remember we had such problems before. What kind of system
> >> and libraries are you using?
> > thanks for your reply.
> > System is custom PXA270 platform.
> > with codesourcery compiler (see below)
> > and glibc 2.5 with pthread.
> > I dont know what more information to give ?
> 
> Like which kernel version, where do you get the glibc-2.5 and pthread binary,
Sorry forgot that completely !
Kernel version tested is 2.6.16 and 2.6.20 (sorry no newer version available yet)
Compiler , GlibC, pthread all come from Codesourcery precompiled in a package
 "CodeSourcery Sourcery G++ Lite 2007q1-10" downloadable for free.
Compiler version is as mentioned before :
arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc (CodeSourcery Sourcery G++ Lite 2007q1-10) 4.2.0 20070413 (prerelease)

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Jürgen Schindele  
Software-Entwicklung

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