[OE-core] how much can bitbake tell me about my upcoming build?

[Richard Purdie]

On Tue, 2012-03-27 at 17:48 -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> so, let's say i've decided to use oe-core to build a qemux86 image:
> 
> $ . oe-core/oe-init-build-env builds/qemux86
> 
> before i go *any* further (before i even decide which image i'm going
> to bake), how much can bitbake tell me about this configuration?
> 
>   i know
> 
> $ bitbake -e
> 
> can tell me my current environment, that's certainly useful.
> 
>   i can also use
> 
> $ bitbake -s
> 
> to show me the current and preferred versions of all packages (related
> strictly to the current MACHINE setting in local.conf, correct?)
> 
>   what other info can i get out of bitbake?  what about image-specific
> info?  is there a way to list the packages required for a given image?
> some equivalent of
> 
> $ bitbake -s core-image-sato
> 
>   what about a command that lists the available images without having
> to peruse the oe-core "images" directories?  and what about any of the
> other bitbake-related utilities?  i can see "bitbake-layers" being
> pretty useful.
> 
>   in short, without starting an actual build, how much information can
> i extract using bitbake and bitbake-related utilities?

Well, there are:

bitbake -g (and look at task-depends.dot)
bitbake -g -u depexp
bitbake core-image-sato -n (dry run)

which will give some interesting info.

> p.s.  one thing i'd like is to be able to ask how much source i would
> need to download for a given build before i start.  is there any way
> to do that?

Not that I'm aware of since the SRC_URIs don't say how big a download
is, nor are they ever likely to.

Cheers,

Richard