[OE-core] Suggested RREPLACES/RCONFLICTS for easier kernel-image upgrades

[Bryan Evenson]

For one project I'm using an Atmel AT91SAM9G25 processor, and I started when support for the chip wasn't fully integrated into the mainline kernel.  As a result, I was using Atmel's Linux fork.  Support has been in the mainline kernel for a while now, so in the middle of doing other updates I plan on switching to using one of the mainline LTS releases.  I'm using the kernel recipe in the meta-sunxi layer as an example (located here: https://github.com/linux-sunxi/meta-sunxi/blob/master/recipes-kernel/linux/linux_4.4.40.bb). I also plan on keeping more up to date on releases.  However, due to the package naming for the kernel images, the RREPLACES/RCONFLICTS statements for firmware upgrade for this recipe is getting ridiculous.  I'm currently building for kernel version 4.1.38, and here's what I have so far to handle all previous cases:

RREPLACES_kernel-image = "kernel-image (<= 4.1) kernel-image-3.6.9-yocto-standard kernel-image-3.10.0-yocto-standard kernel-image-3.10.0-at91"
RCONFLICTS_kernel-image = "kernel-image (<= 4.1) kernel-image-3.6.9-yocto-standard kernel-image-3.10.0-yocto-standard kernel-image-3.10.0-at91"

If it makes a difference, I'm using opkg for a package manager.  Since the kernel version is in the package name, I'm assuming that if I do keep going forward and relatively up to date with LTS release, I'll have to start adding "kernel-image-4.1.38 kernel-image-4.1.39 kernel-image 4.1.40 ...." to the RREPLACES/RCONFLICTS so opkg will upgrade the kernel.

Is there a better way to do this?  I've tried using some wildcards in the package names without any success.

Thanks,
Bryan