On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 12:45 PM, Andrei Gherzan <and...@gherzan.ro> wrote: >>> On 2 May 2013 16:12, Trevor Woerner <twoer...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> - a separate tool (which will probably need to be run as root) is used >>>> to actually format/create the SD device (using, say, sfdisk for >>>> automation) this way the last partition can be specified as "use the >>>> rest of the disk" >>>> - this tool unpacks the requested/required {tar|rpm|deb|ipk}s onto the >>>> SD device (some of which can come from outside the Yocto build system, >>>> e.g. from using the SDK); this device already has its >>>> formatting/partitions ready >>>> - this tool could also handle setting up serial numbers, IP addresses, >>>> etc >>>> - this tools also sets up the bootloader (if required) >>> >>> > > It always makes sense to create images and deploy it to different file > types. I don't know why you don't think this is a feature the build system > should handle.
If you ask the Yocto build system to generate an image for you, there are no knobs you can tweak :-) You are "stuck" with a basic FAT+EXTx image, which is all it can generate for you since it needs to generate this image for you using tools that don't require root privileges (parted, dd, mcopy...) . Oddly enough, in some cases the two partitions aren't required; everything could be done in one, but you get two anyway, because it's easier to do it that way without root. What if your product wants/needs a separate "/data" partition that is 2GB in size, and formatted with reiserfs? Is there a knob for that? What if you want several separate partitions with varying formats? Is there a simple knob for that? (Honestly I don't know, my understanding is "no", you only get 2, but maybe someone will surprise me with "yes"?) In addition to what I've talked about above, there is a larger "production" issue that would tie in better with that I propose rather than with the way things are currently done. You've created your one-off prototype and it works great. Now you want to ramp up production and pump out 100's of these things a week. What if each of your devices needs a unique serial number, or a unique IP address? Are you really going to try to generate 100's of unique images and hope your production/manufacturing team "gets it right"? Doing something like this is not something the build system should handle, this is a post-build activity. The tools we have now are fantastic for someone doing one-off prototypes in their basement, but they don't support the post-development product phase very well (in my opinion!). _______________________________________________ yocto mailing list yocto@yoctoproject.org https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto