[oe] [RFC] removing DISTRO_* vars from task-boot

[Sledz, Steffen]

> >>>> Lately I have been wondering how to change the /dev 
> manager on a per
> >>>> image base, since I want udev for most images and 
> busybox-mdev for
> >>>> special-purpose stuff. The catch is that I want to keep 
> using task-boot
> >>>> for both.
> >>>>
> >>>> Currently we have:
> >>>>
> >>>> DISTRO_DEV_MANAGER ?= 
> "${@base_contains("MACHINE_FEATURES", "kernel26",
> >>>> "udev","",d)}"
> >>>> DISTRO_INIT_MANAGER ?= "sysvinit sysvinit-pidof"
> >>>> DISTRO_INITSCRIPTS ?= "initscripts"
> >>>> DISTRO_LOGIN_MANAGER ?= "tinylogin"
> >>>>
> >>>> in task-boot.bb
> >>>>
> >>>> There are various ways we could attack this:
> >>>>
> >>>> 1) The image.bbclass way:
> >>>>
> >>>>     Put the following in image.bbclass:
> >>>>
> >>>>     IMAGE_DEV_MANAGER ?= 
> "${@base_contains("MACHINE_FEATURES", "kernel26",
> >>>> "udev","",d)}"
> >>>>     IMAGE_INIT_MANAGER ?= "sysvinit sysvinit-pidof"
> >>>>     IMAGE_INITSCRIPTS ?= "initscripts"
> >>>>     IMAGE_LOGIN_MANAGER ?= "tinylogin"
> >>>>
> >>>>     Pros:
> >>>>     * Takes immediate effect
> >>>>     * Can have distro defaults, overridable per image
> >>>>
> >>>>     Cons:
> >>>>     * marks them as 'user installed'
> >>>>     * you can't 'debootstrap' from tasks anymore, you 
> need to encode
> >>>> knowledge about the above vars into the debootstrap script
> >>> I really like this one as for our uses there's times 
> where I'd rather
> >>> let busybox handle INIT_MANAGER and LOGIN_MANAGER too.
> >> Philip C. agrees with you. Should be move everything over 
> or start with
> >> IMAGE_DEV_MANAGER?
> >
> > I say do it all now.  Flexibility is good, lets get it done.
> 
> The patch should appear on this ml right about now.

This is a good (or bad?) example for the wish a uttered some days before. In the official OE manual there is nothing to read about DISTRO_* and/or IMAGE_* vars.

It would be really helpful for other developers which are not that familiar with all the variable stuff and do not memorize the complete mailing list if you could start to document such things in the wiki.

Thx,
Steffen