On 04/26/2011 11:40 AM, Bruce Ashfield wrote: > On 11-04-22 11:10 AM, Tom Zanussi wrote: >> On Thu, 2011-04-21 at 09:05 -0700, Darren Hart wrote: >>> I sat down with Josh earlier this week to discuss how I might use the >>> Image Creator in my development and to address any issues that might >>> pose as blockers to my finding such a tool useful. This led to various >>> feature discussions, scope setting, etc. I wanted to capture that here >>> and also ask for comments from other users and developers. >>> >>> >>> Image Recipe Generation >>> ----------------------- >>> The image creator Josh is working on currently facilitates specifying >>> the policy (bitbake term "distro", such as poky, poky-bleeding, or >>> poky-lsb), image, and any additional packages you may want to include. >>> It then provides a simple wrapper to bitbake and it's output. This is >>> useful in and of itself as sorting out which variables to modify >>> (IMAGE_INSTALL, MACHINE(_ESSENTIAL?)_R?DEPENDS_append(_$MACHINE), etc) >>> and which tasks to rebuild (task_base, task_machine_base, poky-image-*, >>> etc.) can be a frustrating exercise (or at least it has been for me). >>> >>> In order for this feature to be the most useful, it needs to be able to >>> save the result of the user's selection. This involves saving off the >>> "distro" selection (typically in local.conf) as well as an image recipe >>> defining which packages to include in the resulting image. This could be >>> done by writing to local.conf and saving a new *image*.bb file in a >>> suitable location. >>> >>> >>> Writing Layers >>> -------------- >>> The suitable location is most likely a layer, which suggests the Image >>> Builder should probably know how to construct a basic layer skeleton and >>> prompt the user to fill in the descriptive bits required for layer.conf. >>> >>> I could see this as having been useful for the recent Yocto Project 1.0 >>> launch demo we worked on, which added rygel upnp video renderers to the >>> the 0.9 audio only demo. This implies the Image Builder should also be >>> able to work with an existing layer - perhaps only those that it created >>> - and save the changes back to that layer. >>> >>> >>> Configuration Fragments >>> ----------------------- >>> In order to properly build the demo images (poky-image-rygel >>> specifically) some specific license related variables need to be set, >>> typically in local.conf: >>> >>> COMMERCIAL_LICENSE = "" >>> COMMERCIAL_AUDIO_PLUGINS ?= "gst-plugins-ugly-mad >>> gst-plugins-ugly-mpegaudioparse" >>> COMMERCIAL_VIDEO_PLUGINS ?= "gst-plugins-ugly-mpeg2dec >>> gst-plugins-ugly-mpegstream gst-plugins-bad-mpegvideoparse" >>> >>> Without the above, the upnp demo is mostly non-functional. Having to >>> manually add these sorts of settings significantly reduces the value of >>> the Image Builder in my mind. This led to the discussion of providing a >>> graphical mechanism to set the variables that have some impact on how >>> the generated image recipe is built. >>> >>> Something like a Linux kernel kconfig mechanism, which only shows the >>> user relevant options (albeit still WAY too many), might be really nice >>> here. Perhaps an interface that parsed the recipes included in the image >>> recipe and determined which variables would be relevant to the user and >>> present those in the UI with help derived from documentation.conf >>> doctags (or perhaps a new mechanism). >>> >> >> Input we got from the ELC talk suggested that people did think it would >> be intuitive and useful to expand the kernel menuconfig 'UI' down to all >> the other packages in the image. >> >> I've used UIs designed like that in other build systems and it was very >> useful, so I'd add my +1 to the ELC requests... > > And I'd add another +1 to that. >
So the kernel guys agree that menuconfig should used everywhere. Surprise, Surprise. ;-) -- Darren > Bruce > >> >> Tom >> >>> As this would be a considerable effort, and would surely delay the >>> progress of the image builder itself, perhaps a Configuration Editor >>> would be a good companion tool which the Image Builder could launch to >>> do the relevant configurations >>> >>> >>> Conclusions >>> ----------- >>> The goal of any user interface should be to abstract away to >>> implementation details that are not particularly relevant to task at >>> hand, or to the user's perception of the task at hand. I feel these >>> tools as discussed above would help contain feature creep, while still >>> allowing for a more complete graphical interface to configuring and >>> building images. >>> >>> >>> Thoughts? Criticisms? >>> >>> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> yocto mailing list >> yocto@yoctoproject.org >> https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto > > -- Darren Hart Intel Open Source Technology Center Yocto Project - Linux Kernel _______________________________________________ yocto mailing list yocto@yoctoproject.org https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto
