[oe-issues] [Bug 2919] Create a distro for gumstix

[bugzilla-daemon at tinman.treke.net]

http://bugs.openembedded.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2919





--- Comment #6 from Craig Hughes <craig at gumstix.com>  2007-09-04 15:46:19 ---
(In reply to comment #2)
> is it *really* necessary to start a new distro just to eliminate one* var
> (ANGSTROM_MODE) from local.conf?
> 
> * MACHINE.conf may set the image types

It's not just one var in local.conf (which yes, I want to eliminate from there,
since users won't have any clue (and shouldn't need any clue) whether to choose
glibc or uclibc) and image type, though I don't agree that image type should go
in machine.conf -- it surely is a distro issue since there's nothing
fundamental about the gumstix machine which says "use JFFS2" rather than "use
CRAMFS", etc.

There's also the distro name, contents, package preferred versions, chopping
out or /boot, stability, etc. which our customers are going to need.  Right
now, there's no way I can point 99% of our customers are the OE wiki and say
"just use OE".  It took *me* like 2 days to figure out that the word to type
after "bitbake" is "angstrom-minimal-image", and actually that's not what I
want at all, I want angstrom-miminal-image plus some more stuff.  Actually,
maybe if I have a gumstix with minimal on-board flash I want angstrom, but if I
have more flash, I want some openmoko like thing.  And for all I know, in 6
months I won't want angstrom any more, I'll want something else.

The point of having a separate distro for gumstix specifically is that:

1) It's drop-dead easy to explain to gumstix users/customers in a way which
won't change frequently -- just add MACHINE=gumstix-type, DISTRO=gumstix-distro
to your local.conf and then "bitbake gumstix-xyzsize-image"

2) Strong dependency on angstrom is removed; soft dependency is still there,
but if angstrom decides to head in a direction which isn't optimal for gumstix,
then there's less problem.

3) It's easier to have a known-good build which gumstix users can use, with
fixed package revisions for critical components.  Soft dependency on angstrom
makes this a lot easier.  A stable base to build on is critical for people who
want to deploy embedded systems; we have over 7000 customers now, and for many
of them "why wouldn't you just want the latest revision?" is not an acceptable
answer.

My gut tells me there are more reasons than just those 3 too, but it's already
been a longish day and I can't come up with them.  The bottom line is I'm
trying to simplify what a gumstix user needs to do in order to build a working
software image.  The process for setting up and building OE is currently orders
of magnitude harder than setting up and building the gumstix buildroot.  The
latter is 3 steps: svn checkout; make oldconfig; make.  OE is: first, follow
the 20-step process on the "getting started" section of the OE wiki; then
figure out how to configure the local.conf correctly.  Then, figure out which
image you want to build.  No, there aren't really any clues on the wiki to help
you through these choices.  Oh, by the way, you need to know enough to make a
choice about which C library you want on your system....

I *love* OE.  I love being able to build ipkgs.  I love having packages/* have
thousands of packages (vs dozens with buildroot).  But the getting started
hurdle for OE is too high, and I'm trying to lower it.  And the ongoing
maintenance hurdle also looks to be a bit high, and I'm trying to lower that.


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