[Buildroot] [PATCH] Add package raspberrypi-firmware.

[Yann E. MORIN]

Thomas, Marek, All,

On Tuesday 18 September 2012 07:09:34 Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Sep 2012 23:50:27 +0200, Yann E. MORIN wrote:
> > What would be the interest to install the GPU boot files, but not install
> > the VideoCore libraries? Or the other way around, what would be the intrest
> > to install the VidoeCore library without the GPU boot files?

> The GPU boot files are needed to actually boot the ARM processor. So
> technically speaking, they are some kind of first-stage bootloader for
> the ARM processor, even if they get executed on the GPU.
> 
> So, if you want to use the RasberryPi, you *must* install those GPU
> boot files. However, if you're not using the RasberryPi for a 3D
> graphical application, you don't necessarily need the VideoCore library
> files. So I think it makes sense to be able to install the GPU boot
> files separately from the VideoCore library.

Ah, OK, that's one more thing I learned, so I won;t have to discover the
hard way when plugging my RPI first (later tonight! :-) )

So, basically, the initial interest for this package is to provide the
bootloader files, hence I believe the package should go in the bootloader
sub-menu.

Then we can add a VideoCoreIV package in one of the "packages on target"
sub-menu ("libs -> hardware handling" sounds the most adequate AFAICS).

> The underlying problem here is a fundamental weakness in Buildroot
> design: the absence of separation between source packages and binary
> packages. We have the same situation quite often for other things. For
> example the "curl" package. It provides both a library "libcurl", and a
> program "curl" that relies on that library. Should this package be
> under "Libraries -> Networking" or under "Networking applications" ?
> Ditto for many, many of our packages.

Ok, so I'll prepare that patch of mine to add this package, so we can
compare with Marek's solution.

Regards,
Yann E. MORIN.

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