On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 7:57 AM, Manuel Traut <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi, > > On 16:03 Mon 11 Jan , Bill Gatliff wrote: > > > > If you are describing package dependencies, I have found that > > meta-packages solve that problem neatly. And the result is compatible > > out-of-the-box with the rest of Debian. > > that's true for people that are familiar with Debian and know howto > generate > a meta-package. But most of the people using ELBE have nether used Debian > or > even any Linux on an embedded system. And they need an easy to understand > tooling for creating their firmware images including their application. This is crucially important. > > > If you are describing the process to translate a directory into a > > filesystem image, shell scripts and guestfish have worked well for me. > > And, they tend to mirror the instructions of a HOWTO, so they're > > self-documenting. > > That's also true, but there is no guarantee that guestfish version x > behaves > like version y. Also you need to add your debootstrap-wrapper script and > your image generation script to your version control system and ensure, > that > they are compatible. > > Also there is absolutely no guarantee that you can reproduce an image that > behaves the same in 2 years. This is what we solved by generating the > initvm > and archiving all debs together with the image build. > And this is a must have, if your image is used e.g. in a part of an > industrial > automation process or in a health-care device. > Also true in the automotive industry. There you have a 12 year maintenance target that you have to keep along with the build system that built it. In the era of continuous integration this is harder than it sounds. Some companies find that even if they kept their release images they don't have the toolchain to build them because the toolchain has changed so much. Some companies literally lock a machine, with a build system installed, in a closet to ensure they can build their images later. While those methods are of course unsound, having an easy to use way to bind your image and tooling so you can recreate it later is valuable. I'd be very happy to test ELBE and vmdebootstrap as this work goes forward, especially if there are regular updates on this list for example. Regards, Jeremiah
