[Buildroot] Extending buildroot functionality for creating board support packages (BSP) out of buildroot tree (universe II)

[Nikita Nazarenko]

Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 11:51:07 +0200

> From: universe II <universeii at gmx.de>
> To: buildroot at busybox.net
> Subject: [Buildroot] Extending buildroot functionality for creating
>         board support packages (BSP) out of buildroot tree
> Message-ID: <5167D90B.3020601 at gmx.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Dear all,
> we are using buildroot for porting an existing embedded PowerPC board to
> linux. For this purpose we have to make modifications to the kernel
> (adding and changing files to support custom hardware). This can easily
> be done by enabling custom patches in the menuconfig.
> This is a wonderful solution when the development of the kernel
> modifications is done and the patches are existing but during
> development this could be time consuming. The reason is that we can not
> do the kernel modifcations in the kernel tree itself but in a completely
> separated directory structure. This is caused by our existing version
> control system and by project development requirements.
>
> Imagine that you made a small modification to one of the custom files
> (e.g. changing a printk() statement) and you want to re-build the
> kernel. You have to develop a script which takes a virgin kernel,
> extracts the gz file, makes a copy of the tree, modifies the files in
> the copy and then creates the patch and copies this patch to the
> buildroot tree. Even on a fast hardware this takes some time and you
> have to do it for every change.
>
> I spent some time this morning to evaluate if there could be a more
> elegant solution. Here is what I've done:
> 1) In linux/Config.in: Add a new entry to the kernel menuconfig which
> allows to enter a script name or a directory name (similar to the custom
> patch option)
> 2) In linux/linux.mk: After unpacking the kernel and applying the
> patches (if any) the given script or all scripts in the given directory
> are executed.
>
> This allows me to make modification to the unpacked kernel tree without
> the need to create patch files but also opens up flexibility for other
> functionality which may arise in the future.
>
> Let me know what you think about this. If you are interested in
> incorporating these changes into the official buildroot suite, l can
> provide the changes I made.
>
> Regards,
> Andreas
>
>
>
Hello. I've do kernel development for board with custom git repo for kernel
and replace GIT_DOWNLOAD with my own implementation. Instead of getting
tarball with sources it clone full repository in build/ directory, so I can
do patches in tree and after push them to my git tree/make patches.
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