On Sep 18, 2017 11:12 PM, "Ben Coman" btc@openinworld.com wrote:

(You folks do some nice work in VM-land... sure would be nice if it were more easily reproducible by those of us who don't work with the internals daily. For example: what is the recommended way to build a VMMaker image these days? Tried the obvious ways in Squeak 5.1 and Pharo 6.1 and both failed...)

Should be as easy as... $ git clone https://github.com/OpenSmalltalk/opensmalltalk-vm.git $ cd opensmalltalk-vm/build.linux..../pharo.cog.spur/build.debug/ $ ./mvm ...and look for binaries in "products" directory.

Maybe there are times when your installed autotools versions conflicts (IIUC Eliot sometimes has problems on newer Linux versions). If you hit such problems, one path forward may be to leverage Luke's work to produce a Nix build, which "should" be entirely reproducible on anyone's environment. http://forum.world.st/Fwd-Nix-package-for-Pharo-flavor-of- opensmalltalk-vm-td4942450.html http://forum.world.st/nix-based-build-system-was- problem-with-configure-and-libGL-on-CentOS-6-5-td4944335.html @Luke, could you refresh me on how to kick off a Nix Pharo VM build on a non-NixOS platform?

cheers -ben

Ben,

Building the VM hasn't been my issue (it's been working nicely for me in a variety of Linux environments), building the VMMaker image has been the problem. A while back I was using Eliot's buildsqueaktrunkvmmakerimage.sh script but that stopped working for me (I think the last time it successfully ran for me was pre-github migration). Last week I tried to manually install the VMMaker package in Squeak and got an error, this week I tried to install it via Pharo and got a different error. So rather than try to debug any of these approaches which may be obsolete, I was really trying to ask for pointers to the currently recommended method to build a VMMaker image.

Thanks, Phil

Thanks, Phil

On Sep 18, 2017 7:38 PM, "tim Rowledge" tim@rowledge.org wrote:

When possible you’re much better off using the VMSimulator to examine an image.

...

On 18-09-2017, at 4:25 PM, Phil B pbpublist@gmail.com wrote:

Using gdb to explore a running image? Blog post or video format is

great. Most of what I've run across is related to the internals of the VM rather than debugging an image. My gdb skills are pretty rusty plus I suspect that not knowing all of the helper functions available in the VM (and how to best use them in a debugging workflow) is slowing me down.

tim

tim Rowledge; tim@rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim "Bother" said Pooh, as his rucksack opened whilst skydiving

I made a new vmmaker image via Eliot’s script just last week. I posted a small fix to avoid an annoying wait-for-user deprecation trap. What I can't test right now is making the reader image for the simple simulator testing because the a) default VM picked up from bintray does not have the Bochs simulator plugin b) the buldspurtrunkreaderimage.sh explicitly tries to copy an image that will not exist; changing lines 10 & 11 to refer to trunk6.image seems to help. I’d commit it to git except… git.

tim -- tim Rowledge; tim@rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim Useful random insult:- Got into the gene pool while the lifeguard wasn't watching.

Craig Latta wrote

 Have you tried the GitHub Desktop macOS app from GitHub? I find it

to be not scary.

+1. I have been pleasantly surprised by its ease of use, although I'm using it less now because I can now handle my workflow* in Iceberg. Also, don't be mislead by the name; you can manage any git repo, not just those w. GH remotes. You just get a few extra convenience features for GH projects (e.g. open GH repo page in web browser).

* unless I have to do something non-standard, like unwind a mistaken push to remote, in which case I drop down to the command line

----- Cheers, Sean -- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Squeak-VM-f104410.html

Clément,

On Sep 20, 2017 7:04 PM, "Clément Bera" bera.clement@gmail.com wrote:

In practice, all the people using the simulator have images that were built when Eliot's script was working, and we update the image with the new VMMaker code but don't rebuild them. I know its not good but we had to keep things working with limited ressources.

Well that explains a whole lot right there. I fairly regularly rebuild my images from scratch (too many bad experiences with image drift using deltas) and get concerned when I can't do so. I guess I'll not worry about VMMaker for a while on that front if it's a known issue.

So there are 2 solutions: - you ask someone with a working image to give it to you and you start from there (by loading the most recent code, etc.). - you fix Eliot's script or you bug him until he fixes it.

I actually have a 5.0-based VMMaker image so I guess I'll try updating (ugh... 😀) it. Since I'm only a casual viewer/user of these scripts, I'll defer to others who know how they want things to work to update it rather than potentially creating more work for them.

I read quickly your report but it looks to me that 1 can be debugged through the simulator while 2,3,4 needs to be debugged with gdb. I am not sure with 3 since Eliot added some simulation support for sockets at some points.

Thanks, I'll try as you suggest.

For gdb with the VM the main things to know are: - Debug VM is very slow, Assert VM is half the perf of prod VM for most things (though stack page switch for example is much slower in Assert VM). - in general you want an assert or debug VM and put a breakpoint on warning, so when an assertion fails gdb stops and you can try to figure things out. - you need to compile the debug VM to access C variables if you need so. - you can call debug functions printStackAllStack, printFrame, printCogMethod, etc. in gdb. You can try to look in Slang in the VMMaker code for the list of debug functions available (<api> pragma). You often need to manually cast parameters to usqint / sqint in gdb to correctly call those functions.

This is a place I've been running into trouble: I've browsed the print* functions and have naively been trying to poke around but it's been a slog. Hopefully, the pointers you and the others have provided will help me get moving a bit faster.

As always for simulator or gdb the best is to save an image about to crash, start it on the debug platform and make it crash.

Good luck and have fun.

Thanks, Phil

Thanks,

Phil

...

Thanks, Phil

On Sep 18, 2017 7:38 PM, "tim Rowledge" tim@rowledge.org wrote:

When possible you’re much better off using the VMSimulator to examine an image.

...

On 18-09-2017, at 4:25 PM, Phil B pbpublist@gmail.com wrote:

Using gdb to explore a running image? Blog post or video format is

great. Most of what I've run across is related to the internals of the VM rather than debugging an image. My gdb skills are pretty rusty plus I suspect that not knowing all of the helper functions available in the VM (and how to best use them in a debugging workflow) is slowing me down.

tim

tim Rowledge; tim@rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim "Bother" said Pooh, as his rucksack opened whilst skydiving

On Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 7:28 AM, Phil B pbpublist@gmail.com wrote:

Clément,

On Sep 20, 2017 7:04 PM, "Clément Bera" bera.clement@gmail.com wrote:

In practice, all the people using the simulator have images that were built when Eliot's script was working, and we update the image with the new VMMaker code but don't rebuild them. I know its not good but we had to keep things working with limited ressources.

Well that explains a whole lot right there. I fairly regularly rebuild my images from scratch (too many bad experiences with image drift using deltas) and get concerned when I can't do so. I guess I'll not worry about VMMaker for a while on that front if it's a known issue.

So there are 2 solutions:

• you ask someone with a working image to give it to you and you start

from there (by loading the most recent code, etc.).

• you fix Eliot's script or you bug him until he fixes it.

I actually have a 5.0-based VMMaker image so I guess I'll try updating (ugh... 😀) it. Since I'm only a casual viewer/user of these scripts, I'll defer to others who know how they want things to work to update it rather than potentially creating more work for them.

I read quickly your report but it looks to me that 1 can be debugged through the simulator while 2,3,4 needs to be debugged with gdb. I am not sure with 3 since Eliot added some simulation support for sockets at some points.

Thanks, I'll try as you suggest.

For gdb with the VM the main things to know are:

• Debug VM is very slow, Assert VM is half the perf of prod VM for most

things (though stack page switch for example is much slower in Assert VM).

• in general you want an assert or debug VM and put a breakpoint on

warning, so when an assertion fails gdb stops and you can try to figure things out.

• you need to compile the debug VM to access C variables if you need so.
• you can call debug functions printStackAllStack, printFrame,

printCogMethod, etc. in gdb. You can try to look in Slang in the VMMaker code for the list of debug functions available (<api> pragma). You often need to manually cast parameters to usqint / sqint in gdb to correctly call those functions.

This is a place I've been running into trouble: I've browsed the print* functions and have naively been trying to poke around but it's been a slog.

Maybe useful... http://forum.world.st/reversible-debugging-with-gdb-td4960462.html

cheers -ben

Hopefully, the pointers you and the others have provided will help me get moving a bit faster.

As always for simulator or gdb the best is to save an image about to crash, start it on the debug platform and make it crash.

Good luck and have fun.

Thanks, Phil

Thanks,

...

Phil

...

Thanks, Phil

On Sep 18, 2017 7:38 PM, "tim Rowledge" tim@rowledge.org wrote:

When possible you’re much better off using the VMSimulator to examine an image.

...

On 18-09-2017, at 4:25 PM, Phil B pbpublist@gmail.com wrote:

Using gdb to explore a running image? Blog post or video format is

great. Most of what I've run across is related to the internals of the VM rather than debugging an image. My gdb skills are pretty rusty plus I suspect that not knowing all of the helper functions available in the VM (and how to best use them in a debugging workflow) is slowing me down.

tim

tim Rowledge; tim@rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim "Bother" said Pooh, as his rucksack opened whilst skydiving

That's not what I'm seeing. (Just tried again) I get a 6k TrunkImage.zip download and an unzip error basically telling me it's an invalid archive... Which it is. When I look at the zip file it appears to instead be a HTML page for Travis CI complaining about JavaScript being disabled...

On Sep 21, 2017 12:51 PM, "tim Rowledge" tim@rowledge.org wrote:

I just did a double-check on this and all you need to do is the git dance to download cd blah-blah/image ./buildspurtrunkvmmakerimage.sh wait a couple of minutes. Done. As expected.

tim

tim Rowledge; tim@rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim Strange OpCodes: XYZZY: Branch and Play Adventure

Tim,

Thanks for the pointers but Tobias got me right to the issue: my repo was messed up and not updating.

Thanks, Phil

On Sep 22, 2017 4:55 PM, "tim Rowledge" tim@rowledge.org wrote:

...

On 22-09-2017, at 1:46 PM, Phil B pbpublist@gmail.com wrote:

That's not what I'm seeing. (Just tried again) I get a 6k

TrunkImage.zip download and an unzip error basically telling me it's an invalid archive... Which it is. When I look at the zip file it appears to instead be a HTML page for Travis CI complaining about JavaScript being disabled…

Well that’s not good.

Try running the script with shell debugging on to show everything it does. See http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/sect_02_03.html for a basic explanation if you’re not already familiar. It almost makes sense to me.

tim

tim Rowledge; tim@rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim Useful Latin Phrases:- Te precor dulcissime supplex! = Pretty please with a cherry on top!

On Sep 22, 2017 4:56 PM, "Tobias Pape" Das.Linux@gmx.de wrote:

On 22.09.2017, at 22:46, Phil B pbpublist@gmail.com wrote:

That's not what I'm seeing. (Just tried again) I get a 6k TrunkImage.zip

download and an unzip error basically telling me it's an invalid archive... Which it is. When I look at the zip file it appears to instead be a HTML page for Travis CI complaining about JavaScript being disabled...

Sounds as if your checkout is out of date? Can you check that your image/getlatesttrunkimage.sh looks like that? https://github.com/OpenSmalltalk/opensmalltalk-vm/blob/Cog/ image/getlatesttrunkimage.sh Best regards -Tobias

Tobias,

I didn't even see an image/getlatesttrunkimage.sh file. So thinking that my repo might have gotten corrupted or was just not updating for some reason (the last commit I was seeing was early August), I re-cloned it... now the VMMaker image build works. First time I've had that issue with git...

Thanks, Phil