[Buildroot] [PATCH 1/5] Remove the "project" feature

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Le Tue, 8 Sep 2009 08:27:07 +0200,
Hans-Christian Egtvedt <hans-christian.egtvedt at atmel.com> a écrit :

> I use it all the time ;) How do you propose building for multiple
> targets? I would at least like to share the toolchain, preferably also
> libraries.

One solution is to do it outside of Buildroot. Assuming all you want to
rebuild for the different targets is kernel, u-boot and busybox :

 $ make menuconfig
 Configure for target 1
 $ make
 Wait
 Copy the result image
 $ rm -rf output/build/linux-* output/build/u-boot-* output/build/busybox-*
 $ make menuconfig
 Configure for target 2
 $ make
 Wait
 Copy the result image

And so on. Is this significantly different (in terms of complexity)
compared to what you have to do today ?

The net advantage of this solution is that it keeps the complexity
outside of Buildroot, so the users not interested by this feature don't
see this complexity.

> I did not think project_build_ARCH was confusing, but perhaps project_
> part would be misleading? I would rather see a build/board/<stuff>
> setup.

Yes, project_build_ARCH is very confusing. Question from beginners: «Why
are some stuff built in project_build_ARCH and some others in
build_ARCH ?», «Why is my root filesystem in this strange and far away
place project_build_ARCH/uclibc/root/ ?», etc.

build/board/ would probably be ok if only the kernel + u-boot would
differ from one board to the other. But in the current implementation,
busybox is also treated like the kernel and u-boot (i.e built inside
project_build_ARCH and not inside build_ARCH).

Moreover, this build/board/ thing only works if your boards are very
similar (i.e same processor architecture, same instruction set, etc.).
So it only partially solves the problem we're trying to address.

Sincerly,

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, Free Electrons
Kernel, drivers and embedded Linux development,
consulting, training and support.
http://free-electrons.com