Modify launch script and docs

docs/source/commands.rst

@@ -94,8 +94,8 @@ workload.
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 In some cases, you may need to boot your workload in spike (typically due to a
 custom ISA extension or hardware model). In that case, you may use the -s
-option. Note that spike currently does not support network or block devices.
-You must pass the --no-disk option to FireMarshal when using spike.
+option. Note that spike currently does not support network.
+You may need to pass the --no-disk option to FireMarshal when using spike.
 
 clean
 --------------------------------------
@@ -115,8 +115,7 @@ included in the output directory.
 
 ``-s --spike``
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
-Test using spike instead of qemu (requires the --no-disk option to the
-``marshal`` command).
+Test using spike instead of qemu.
 
 ``-m testDir --manual testDir``
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

docs/source/internal/Build.rst

@@ -4,10 +4,12 @@ Build Process
 
 The goal of building a workload is to produce a working boot binary and
 (optionally) a root filesystem to boot from. The same outputs are used for
-Spike, Qemu, and FireSim. The one exception is that Spike does not support a
-disk, so users may choose to create an initramfs-only version of their workload
-for Spike (that binary will boot on Qemu and FireSim as well). The build process
-proceeds as follows:
+Spike, Qemu, and FireSim. Spike now supports a disk. In order to use a disk,
+libspikedevices.so should be installed by chipyard to the RISCV library path.
+Iceblk will be used as the default device. Users may also choose to create 
+an initramfs-only version of their workload instead for Spike
+(that binary will boot on Qemu and FireSim as well).
+The build process proceeds as follows:
 
 Build Parents
 --------------------

wlutil/launch.py

@@ -37,20 +37,23 @@ def getSpikeCmd(config, nodisk=False):
         log.warn("You have hard-coded a disk image in your workload. Spike does not support disk images, your workload may not work correctly. Consider building with the '--nodisk' option (for linux-based workloads).")
     elif 'img' in config and not nodisk:
         riscv_lib_path = os.getenv('RISCV')
-        if not os.path.isfile(riscv_lib_path+'/lib/libspikedevices.so'):
-            raise ValueError("Spike does not support disk-based configurations without libspikedevices.so")
-
-        spikeArgs += '--extlib=libspikedevices.so ' +\
-                     "--device=\"iceblk," +\
-                     'img=' + str(config.get('img', '')) + "\" "
+        if riscv_lib_path is None:
+            raise ValueError("The RISCV environment variable is not set")
+        elif not os.path.isfile(riscv_lib_path+'/lib/libspikedevices.so'):
+            raise ValueError("Spike does not support disk-based configurations without libspikedevices.so installed by Chipyard")
+        else:
+            spikeArgs += '--extlib=libspikedevices.so ' +\
+                         "--device=\"iceblk," +\
+                         'img=' + str(config.get('img', '')) + "\" "
 
     if 'spike' in config:
         spikeBin = str(config['spike'])
     else:
         spikeBin = 'spike'
 
     cmd = [spikeBin,
-           spikeArgs,  # config.get('spike-args', ''),
+           spikeArgs,
+           config.get('spike-args', ''),
            ' -p' + str(config['cpus']),
            ' -m' + str(int(config['mem'] / (1024*1024)))]
     if nodisk: