[Buildroot] Help: to understand build root

[Andreas Ziegler]

Hi Kunal,

> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 6 May 2020 12:24:57 +0530
> From: Kunal Chauhan <atkunalchauhan at gmail.com>
> To: buildroot at busybox.net
> Subject: Re: [Buildroot] Help: to understand build root (Andreas
> 	Ziegler)

> 1.Team just gone through the url given but still I am confused what is 
> the
> main purpose of making build_root directory, when we can compile our 
> source
> in different way.
> 2. May be I am not understanding the concept as I am  new to
> firmware concept. but question is also how the code is built and test 
> as a
> developer

As an embedded developer you would normally be seriously limited by the 
production hardware (where the finished product is supposed to run): not 
enough memory, no persistent storage, and just a serial console for 
talking to the machine. This is why people use different hardware for 
development and test/production.

On your development machine you would write code, do development tests, 
if necessary by using mock-ups for missing physical interfaces, and 
check in after you are satisfied.

The integration step pulls the software from the repository, packages it 
with other necessary binaries and generates a firmware image. This is 
where Buildroot comes into the picture. Buildroot is not a development 
environment, but an integration tool.

After deploying your image for integration testing on the target 
hardware, your options for debugging are limited. You could use, for 
example, instrumentation of the code or gdb (supports remote debugging) 
for this purpose.

It might make things easier if you told us something of your intended 
use case.

Kind regards,
Andreas