This is release m5_1.1 of the M5 simulator.

This file contains brief "getting started" information and release
notes.  For more information, see http://m5.eecs.umich.edu.  If you
have questions, please send mail to m5sim-users@lists.sourceforge.net.

WHAT'S INCLUDED (AND NOT)
-------------------------

Since you're reading this file, presumably you've managed to untar the
distribution.  The archive you've unpacked has three subdirectories:
 - m5: the simulator itself
 - m5-test: regression tests and scripts to run them
 - ext: less-common external packages needed to build m5
 - alpha-system: source for Alpha console and PALcode

M5 is a capable, full-system simulator that current supports both Linux
2.4/2.6 and the proprietary Compaq/HP Tru64 version of Unix. We are able 
to distribute Linux bootdisks, but we are unable to distribute bootable
disk images of Tru64 Unix. If you have a Tru64 license and are interested 
in obtaining disk images, contact us at m5-dev@eecs.umich.edu.

WHAT'S NEEDED
-------------
- GCC (version 3.3 or 3.4 recommended)
- Python 2.3 or newer
- SCons 0.96.1 (see http://www.scons.org)

WHAT'S RECOMMENDED
------------------
- MySQL (for statistics complex statistics storage/retrieval)
- Python-MysqlDB (for statistics analysis) 

GETTING STARTED
---------------

There are two different build targets and three optimizations levels:

Target:
-------
ALPHA_SE - Syscall emulation simulation
ALPHA_FS - Full system simulation

Optimization:
-------------
m5.debug - debug version of the code with tracing and without optimization
m5.opt   - optimized version of code with tracing
m5.fast  - optimized version of the code without tracing and asserts

Different targets are built in different subdirectories of m5/build.
Binaries with the same target but different optimization levels share
the same directory.  Note that you can build m5 in any directory you
choose by copying the SConstruct file there and creating symbolic links
to the 'm5' and 'ext' directories.

The following steps will build and test the simulator.  The variable
"$top" refers to the top directory where you've unpacked the files,
i.e., the one containing the m5, m5-test, and ext directories.  If you
have a multiprocessor system, you should give scons a "-j N" argument (like
make) to run N jobs in parallel.

To build and test the syscall-emulation simulator:

1. In $top/m5/build, run "scons ALPHA_SE/m5.opt".
2. In $top/m5-test, run "./do-tests.pl -B ALPHA_SE".

The tests should end with "finished do-tests successfully!"
Note: if you're running under Cygwin, several tests will fail with an
"EIO trace inconsistency: ICNT mismatch" error.  This is due to the
lack of fesetround() under Cygwin causing differences in floating-point
rounding.  Other than that discrepancy your simulator is working perfectly.

To build and test the full-system simualator:

1. Download the full-system binary package from XXX.  This package includes
   disk images and kernel, palcode, and console binaries for Linux and FreeBSD.
2. Edit SYSTEMDIR in $top/m5-test/SysPaths.py to point to your local copy
   of the binaries.
3. In $top/m5/build, run "scons ALPHA_FS/m5.opt".
4. In $top/m5-test, run "./do-tests.pl -B ALPHA_FS".