[Buildroot] [RFC] Slides "Using Buildroot for real projects"
Arnout Vandecappelle
arnout at mind.be
Tue Oct 18 21:35:07 UTC 2011
On Monday 17 October 2011 18:47:18, Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> The goal of the talk is to give some recommendations and best practices
> on how to use Buildroot. As I'm sure I forgot a lot of things in my
> slides above, I'd like to know what you, Buildroot developers/users,
> would have to say on the topic, so that I can improve the contents of
> this presentation.
Of course, I can't stay behind with giving my comments! They're a bit
broader than the earlier comments, though.
For the 'What is Buildroot slide', I would split it in a 'What' and a 'Why' slide (bottom/top half). Also, the goal for me is to build a complete Linux-based embedded system with the minimum amount of hassle. That means:
- minimal dependency on the build host's operating system (no specific bitbake or whatever package needs to be installed);
- reproducible builds;
- builds everything.
About the "Buildroot can import external toolchains": it's not the option that I would advise at this time. A major disadvantage is that there may be inconsistencies between what buildroot thinks the toolchain can do and what it actually can (unless it's a CodeSourcery toolchain, but those use glibc) - you have to define yourself what extra stuff the toolchain has.
The board/<company>/<project>/linux-patches setup is exactly what I typically use as well. I would like some future version of buildroot to simplify such a setup, i.e. you just configure board/<company>/<project> and buildroot looks for all the patches there. But that's not for this presentation :-)
One typical use case that is missing: in a company with several developers, you would put a download mirror in some central location and either point
BR2_DL_DIR or BR2_PRIMARY_SITE to it. (BTW, now I notice that the help text of BR2_PRIMARY_SITE incorrectly claims that it only works for AUTOTARGETS.)
Another important hint: to debug, you should use output/host/usr/bin/<arch>-gdb -ex 'set solib-absolute-prefix output/staging'.
And it may be worthwhile to talk about how you can contribute :-) DCO, coding style, where to send it.
Regards,
Arnout
--
Arnout Vandecappelle arnout at mind be
Senior Embedded Software Architect +32-16-286540
Essensium/Mind http://www.mind.be
G.Geenslaan 9, 3001 Leuven, Belgium BE 872 984 063 RPR Leuven
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