GSoC 2018 Proposal: Update PRU Python loader--Bill Morrisson

=Bill M. GSoC Proposal =

Student: Bill Morrisson Talla Mentors: Jason Kridner Kumar Abhishek Code: https://github.com/beagleboard/linux  https://github.com/beagleboard/pypruss Wiki: https://elinux.org/GSoC_2018_Proposal:_Update_PRU_Python_loader--Bill_Morrisson

=Status= This project is currently just a proposal.

=Proposal= This project will be done in 3 deliverables.

1 Implement remoteproc function calls in PyPRUSS. 2 Implement RPMsg functions. 3 Update PyPRUSS to newer images

About you
IRC: spiritus Github: https://github.com/spiritus72 School: Bishop's University, Sherbrooke, Quebec Country: Cameroon/Canada Primary language (We have mentors who speak multiple languages): English Typical work hours (We have mentors in various time zones): 8:00 AM to 05:00 PM UTC Previous GSoC/Open Source participation: I helped with a little test here but nothing big: https://github.com/oppia/oppia/commits/master?author=spiritus72 Nevertheless I have no major experience but I'm excited to join the open source community.

About your project
Project name:   Update PRU Python loader Task Completion: A "Hello World" application has been created,cross-compiled using GCC-ARM tool chain and executed using QEMU. A Pull request has been generated for the same.Please find the link here.

Description
This project is to update PyPRUSS such that it can loaded with remoteproc support to enable developers program PRUs using a Python wrapper when Python is be the better choice for the implementation on the said PRUs at hand. PyPRUSS has been using the UIO interface with the modprobe function specifically to be able to load the firmware but it comes with its own problems due to the fact that it's very old and not does not assume newer BeagleBone images. It was primarily focused on the earlier Angstrom firmware for the BeagleBone Black. The current proposal for the project aims to enable the PRUs to be loaded with firmware using a Python API, move examples, show RPMsg functions and to add support for newer BeagleBone images to PyPRUSS. Remoteproc support will be implemented in PyPRUSS such that the various controls of the PRUs will be done with Python by trying to follow the same way the sysfs interface is exposed to the Userspace to start/stop the PRUs cores as well as specify the firmware to load. Then RPMsg functions will be shown by "catching" the buffers that will be provided by the remoteproc module during PRU firmware loading. This will be a major advantage for all developers who have a larger project already done in Python and are wanting to have a specific part done through PyPRUSS.

(4 weeks) Community Bonding
Initiating communication with mentors, better familiarization with the BeagleBone and the PyPRUSS source code, isolating remoteproc functions that will be used for PRU controls and ensure code compiles within the source tree.

(2 weeks)
Implement User API functions( rproc_boot(...), rproc_shutdown(...) ). Test and ensure they work well and can be used through the python wrapper.

(2 weeks)
Implement API functions for implementors( *rproc_alloc(...), rproc_free(...), rproc_add(...), etc), test and ensure they work properly.

(5 days) 1st evaluation
Review of what has been done, continued testing of the User and Implementors API functions.

(3 weeks)
Add support for RPMsg functions and selected BeagleBone images.

(5 days) 2nd evaluation
Test and review of the RPMsg functions.

(3 weeks)
Improvements and fixes on the previous implementations done, move examples/ to remoteproc. Code cleanup, documentation and final test coverage.

Experience
During the Embedded Linux conference 2017 in Prague, I attended a lot of workshops from the Yocto project where I learned how to program on the BeagleBoard. After the conference I played a little bit with the DragonBoard doing some exercises on it. Being a quick learner, I will be comfortable enough to implement this project on a BeagleBone Black. I am new to the PyPRUSS library so I have been doing research in the background on how to implement the different functionalities on BeagleBone and I can assure I will be able to accomplish at least 2/3 deliverables for this summer if things get tough/rough. I am experienced in Python as I have built various web projects, systems and automation tools with it. I have worked with C on some message parsing mechanism projects. Updating to newer images will not be an issue, the challenging part will be to make sure that loading through Python will not cause any future errors.

Contingency
What will you do if you get stuck on your project and your mentor isn’t around? I will ensure that probability of this happening is less by planning things in advance.I will also check with the community whether they have a backup mentor provision.I will communicate the coding issues with the community or students working on similar projects to see if someone can help. I will contact the organisation administrator to talk about the issue and make sure the work is not delayed in the mean time by documenting the finished work. I have a large network of developers of different expertise in different channels, if the community is not able to attend to the issues I have in time I will contact others I know with the experience to help me out of the situation I might have at hand.

Benefit
If successfully completed, what will its impact be on the BeagleBoard.org community? Include quotes from BeagleBoard.org community members who can be found on http://beagleboard.org/discuss and http://bbb.io/gsocchat. This will benefit the community at large by solving a solution to a problem that was posed by user "pru_python" here: https://www.corecompute.com/beagle/beagle_20180207.html and also every other developer that were having issues using PRUs through a project that uses Python.

Suggestions
Is there anything else we should have asked you? I was recently admitted into a Masters of Science(MS) program in Computer Science, I am good in Python and C programming.I have no other commitments this summer and can dedicate my entire time for the project. Also even though the Google Summer of Code says 20hrs/week for working on the project I will be able to work 40hrs+ due to my interest in this project and to be able to finish with the project before the GSoC timeline ends.