[oe] Pull request from DoréDevelopment - New: Micro distro/image

[Martin Lund]

Philip Balister wrote:
> Martin Lund wrote:
>> Hello OE dev,
>>
>> Please pull the changes from the following repository:
>>
>> git pull git://dev.doredevelopment.dk/oe-micro.git master
>>
>> This oe-micro repository adds the following files to current dev:
>>
>> conf/distro/micro-uclibc.conf |   43 +++++++++++++++++
>> conf/distro/micro.conf        |  100 
>> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>> recipes/images/micro-image.bb |   34 ++++++++++++++
>> 3 files changed, 177 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
>>
>> There should be no conflicts with the current OE dev branch.
>>
>> These files constitute a new distribution named "Micro" and a 
>> corresponding buildable image target: micro-image
>
> Why can't we make the needed changes to the minimal distro? I'd hate 
> to see us have minimal and really-minimal distros, when they are 
> trying to do the same thing.

Yes - the two distro definitions are closely related.

The main goal of micro is to be able to build a _very_ tiny rootfs. A 
secondary goal is to do this with as little distro/image definition as 
possible - why make it complex if you can do it simple.

The downside of having one distro to build it all is that the distro 
configuration becomes fairly complex - and as we know complex includes 
more maintenance and configuration becomes difficult to read/customize 
for non OE maintainers.

Of course introducing too many distros is a bad idea but I do think we 
need a few good _generic_ distro choices to choose from - currently I 
dont see that.

I would like something small (micro), medium (mini), big (...), huge 
(angstrom) to choose from in terms of supported generic OE distro 
definitions. Actually, I would love to help out doing these generic 
distro choices - provided that they are kept clean and sane. Consider 
micro the first contribution in this direction.

Today I feel that OE users are kind of left behind if they do not choose 
Angstrom distro. For developers like me Angstrom is no option because I 
dont want everything-but-the-kitchen-sink - I want tiny!

> What changes did you make to minimal.conf to to get to micro.conf? 
> I'll admit to not looking closely at the insides of the distro files, 
> but I want to learn more.
>
Please make a quick diff and have a look  ;)
> I'm also curious what happens if you build the micro-image against 
> Angstrom.
>
Sorry, I never tried that and never intended to do so. You will most 
likely end up with a different image or the build might break.

> Philip
>
>>
>>
>>
>> The "Micro" distribution/image is created because we feel that there 
>> is a need for a truly tiny and clean distro and image definition in 
>> OE for those users out there that needs a _very_ tiny Linux rootfs 
>> with virtually nothing installed except busybox, libc, udev, and a 
>> few init scripts. On arm the jffs2 image size is only 1 MB (uclibc 
>> based). No bloat allowed.
>>
>> The micro-image is ideal for users who wants this type of tiny Linux 
>> rootfs system with only a few custom applications added.
>>
>> It has been tested to build and run on the following machine types:
>>
>>    * at91sam9263ek [glibc, uclibc]
>>    * x86 [glibc]
>>
>> As everything else OE it should build for most other machine types as 
>> well (no guarantee of course).
>>
>> The micro distribution/image is inspired by the "minimal" distro and 
>> image configuration - but it takes that one step further as contents 
>> are heavily stripped down and non needed definitions removed. Thanks 
>> to those who contributed to minimal distro - good work.
>>
>> More details on micro can be found in the following wiki:
>> http://dev.doredevelopment.dk/wiki/OpenEmbeddedMicro
>>
>> Note: It is still work in progress and there are things to improve on 
>> the todo list (see wiki).
>>
>> We intend to maintain this distro/image in the future - please pull :)
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Best regards, DoréDevelopment
>>
>
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