[Buildroot] [PATCHv4 4/5] docs/manual: add explanations about BR2_EXTERNAL

Sun Dec 1 00:43:47 UTC 2013

On 29/11/13 20:00, Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> This commit updates the manual to add details on how to use the
> BR2_EXTERNAL feature.
>
> Signed-off-by: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni at free-electrons.com>
> ---
>   docs/manual/customize-outside-br.txt | 132 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>   docs/manual/customize.txt            |   2 +
>   2 files changed, 134 insertions(+)
>   create mode 100644 docs/manual/customize-outside-br.txt
>
> diff --git a/docs/manual/customize-outside-br.txt b/docs/manual/customize-outside-br.txt
> new file mode 100644
> index 0000000..623a421
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/docs/manual/customize-outside-br.txt
> @@ -0,0 +1,132 @@
> +// -*- mode:doc -*- ;
> +
> +[[outside-br-custom]]
> +Keeping customization outside Buildroot
> +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> +
> +While the Buildroot community recommends and encourages upstreaming to
> +the official Buildroot version the packages and boards support that
> +are written by developers, it is sometimes not possible or desirable,
> +due to these packages or boards being highly specific or proprietary.

While the Buildroot community recommends and encourages upstreaming the
packages and board support that are written by developers to the official
Buildroot version, this is sometimes not possible or desirable, because
these packages or boards are highly specific or proprietary.

> +
> +In this case, Buildroot users are offered two choices:
> +
> + * They can add their packages, board support and configuration files
> +   directly within the Buildroot tree, and maintain them by using
> +   branches in a version control system.
> +
> + * They can use the +BR2_EXTERNAL+ mechanism, which allows to keep
> +   package recipes, board support and configuration files outside of
> +   the Buildroot tree, while still having them nicely integrated in
> +   the build logic. The following paragraphs give details on how to
> +   use +BR2_EXTERNAL+.
> +
> ++BR2_EXTERNAL+ is an environment variable that one can use to point to
> +a directory that contains Buildroot customizations. It can be passed
> +to any Buildroot +make+ invocation, and when it is passed. It is
> +automatically saved in the hidden +.br-external+ file in the output
> +directory, so that it is not needed to pass +BR2_EXTERNAL+ at every
> ++make+ invocation. It can however be changed at any time by specifying
> +a new value, and can be removed by passing an empty value. The
> ++BR2_EXTERNAL+ path can be either an absolute or a relative path, but
> +if it's passed as a relative path, it is important to note that it is
> +interpreted relatively to the main Buildroot source directory, not the
> +Buildroot output directory.
> +
> +Some examples:
> +
> +-----
> + buildroot/ $ make BR2_EXTERNAL=../foobar menuconfig
> +-----
> +
> +Starting from now on, external definitions fromt he +../company+

  ../foobar, not ../company, otherwise people will get confuser :-)

> +directory will be used:
> +
> +-----
> + buildroot/ $ make
> + buildroot/ $ make legal-info
> +-----
> +
> +We can switch to another external definitions directory at any time:
> +
> +-----
> + buildroot/ $ make BR2_EXTERNAL=../barfoo xconfig
> +-----
> +
> +Or disable the usage of external definitions:
> +
> +-----
> + buildroot/ $ make BR2_EXTERNAL= xconfig
> +-----
> +
> +This +BR2_EXTERNAL+ then allows three different things:
> +
> + * One can store all the board-specific configuration files here, such
> +   as the kernel configuration, the root filesystem overlay, or any
> +   other configuration file for which Buildroot allows to set its
> +   location. The +BR2_EXTERNAL+ value is available within the
> +   Buildroot configuration using +$(BR2_EXTERNAL)+. As an example, one
> +   could set the +BR2_ROOTFS_OVERLAY+ Buildroot option to
> +   +$(BR2_EXTERNAL)/board/<boardname>/overlay/+ (to specify a root
> +   filesystem overlay), or the +BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_CONFIG_FILE+
> +   Buildroot option to +$(BR2_EXTERNAL)/board/<boardname>/kernel.config+
> +   (to specify the location of the kernel configuration file).  + To
> +   achieve this, it is recommended but not mandatory, to store those
> +   details in directories called +board/<boardname>/+ under
> +   +BR2_EXTERNAL+.

  Maybe add "This matches the directory structure used within Buildroot."

> +
> + * One can store package recipes (i.e +Config.in+ and
> +   +<packagename>.mk+), or even custom configuration options and make
> +   logic. Buildroot automatically includes +BR2_EXTERNAL/Config.in+ to
> +   make it appear in the top-level configuration menu, and includes
> +   +BR2_EXTERNAL/external.mk+ with the rest of the makefile logic.
> ++
> +The main usage of this is to store package recipes. The recommended
> +   way to do this is to write a +BR2_EXTERNAL/Config.in+ that looks
> +   like:
> ++
> +------
> +menu "<somecompany> packages"
> +
> +source "$BR2_EXTERNAL/package/package1/Config.in"
> +source "$BR2_EXTERNAL/package/package2/Config.in"
> +
> +endmenu
> +------
> ++
> +Then, have a +BR2_EXTERNAL/external.mk' file that looks like:
> ++
> +------
> +include $(sort $(wildcard $(BR2_EXTERNAL)/package/*/*.mk))
> +------
> ++
> +And then in +BR2_EXTERNAL/package/package1+ and
> +   +BR2_EXTERNAL/package/package2+ create normal Buildroot package
> +   recipes, as explained in xref:adding-packages[].
> +
> + * One can store Buildroot defconfigs in the +configs+ subdirectory of
> +   +BR2_EXTERNAL+. Buildroot will automatically show them in the
> +   output of +make help+ and allow them to be loaded with the normal
> +   +make <name>_defconfig+ command.
> +
> +In the end, a typical +BR2_EXTERNAL+ directory organization would
> +generally be:
> +
> +-----
> +├── Config.in
> +├── external.mk
> +├── board/
> +│   └── <boardname>/

  For completeness, maybe add a linux.config here.

  Regards,
  Arnout

> +│       └── overlay/
> +│           └── etc/
> +│               └── <some file>
> +├── configs/
> +│   └── <boardname>_defconfig
> +└── package/
> +    └── package1/
> +        ├── Config.in
> +        └── package1.mk
> +    └── package2/
> +        ├── Config.in
> +        └── package2.mk
> +------
> diff --git a/docs/manual/customize.txt b/docs/manual/customize.txt
> index 0456ef1..7e46fd8 100644
> --- a/docs/manual/customize.txt
> +++ b/docs/manual/customize.txt
> @@ -17,3 +17,5 @@ include::customize-toolchain.txt[]
>   include::customize-store.txt[]
>
>   include::customize-packages.txt[]
> +
> +include::customize-outside-br.txt[]
>

-- 
Arnout Vandecappelle                          arnout at mind be
Senior Embedded Software Architect            +32-16-286500
Essensium/Mind                                http://www.mind.be
G.Geenslaan 9, 3001 Leuven, Belgium           BE 872 984 063 RPR Leuven
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