[RFC] ts72xx, ts73xx, ts74xx? How to handle properly similar machines

[RFC] ts72xx, ts73xx, ts74xx? How to handle properly similar machines

[Petr Štetiar]

Hi,

I've been asked if I could add support for the ts7400 board/machine in the OE.
It's not a big deal, it's just an addition of one patch to the kernel recipe.

While I'll be into it, I was thinking about adding the base for the possible
future addition of ts7300[2] boards also. Althought I own only ts7800 and
ts7250, the ts7200[4], ts7300 and ts7400 families looks like they have a lot
of common and it would be possible to have for example one kernel for all of
them.

The question is, how to handle this correctly in OE? On the IRC, I was pointed
to the SOC_FAMILY[3], but it says "The use of SOC_FAMILY as an override is
currently a distribution or local setting", what does it mean?

Would it be possible to create, say ts7234.inc file with shared stuff for all
the boards, and separate ts7{2,3,4}xx.conf files with the features for each
series, say ts73xx would contain FPGA/video related stuff etc, so the machine
specific overrides would be needed. 

Any thoughts? Thanks.

1. http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/board-detail.php?product=TS-7400
2. http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/arm-sbc.php#ts-7300-fpga-series
3. http://docs.openembedded.org/usermanual/html/commonuse_new_machine.html
4. http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/arm-sbc.php#ts-7200-200mhz-series

-- ynezz

Re: [RFC] ts72xx, ts73xx, ts74xx? How to handle properly similar machines

[Koen Kooi]

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On 14-10-10 14:45, Petr Štetiar wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've been asked if I could add support for the ts7400 board/machine in the OE.
> It's not a big deal, it's just an addition of one patch to the kernel recipe.
> 
> While I'll be into it, I was thinking about adding the base for the possible
> future addition of ts7300[2] boards also. Althought I own only ts7800 and
> ts7250, the ts7200[4], ts7300 and ts7400 families looks like they have a lot
> of common and it would be possible to have for example one kernel for all of
> them.
> 
> The question is, how to handle this correctly in OE? On the IRC, I was pointed
> to the SOC_FAMILY[3], but it says "The use of SOC_FAMILY as an override is
> currently a distribution or local setting", what does it mean?

It means you need to use angstrom or set is as override in local.conf
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Re: [RFC] ts72xx, ts73xx, ts74xx? How to handle properly similar machines

[Petr Štetiar]

Koen Kooi <k.kooi@student.utwente.nl> [2010-10-14 15:22:05]:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On 14-10-10 14:45, Petr Štetiar wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I've been asked if I could add support for the ts7400 board/machine in the OE.
> > It's not a big deal, it's just an addition of one patch to the kernel recipe.
> > 
> > While I'll be into it, I was thinking about adding the base for the possible
> > future addition of ts7300[2] boards also. Althought I own only ts7800 and
> > ts7250, the ts7200[4], ts7300 and ts7400 families looks like they have a lot
> > of common and it would be possible to have for example one kernel for all of
> > them.
> > 
> > The question is, how to handle this correctly in OE? On the IRC, I was pointed
> > to the SOC_FAMILY[3], but it says "The use of SOC_FAMILY as an override is
> > currently a distribution or local setting", what does it mean?
> 
> It means you need to use angstrom or set is as override in local.conf

You mean setting it to something like a SOC_FAMILY = "ts7xxx"? And then do
something like this, from recipes/ti/ti-linuxutils.inc:

do_compile() {
    unset CFLAGS CPPFLAGS CXXFLAGS LDFLAGS

    case ${SOC_FAMILY} in
    dm365)
            modules="cmem edma irq";;
    omap3)
            modules="cmem sdma";;
        dm355)
            modules="cmem edma irq";;
    *)
            modules="cmem"
    esac

Well, I'm not OE/bitbake expert, but using something like
do_compile_append_SOC_FAMILY() would fit more in OE style for me. I can't find
any other usage of it. Anyway I think, that it would be abuse of SOC_FAMILY,
something like the SBC_FAMILY would be more apropriate, but again, I'm not OE
expert and I don't know what is possible.

-- ynezz

Re: [RFC] ts72xx, ts73xx, ts74xx? How to handle properly similar machines

[Petr Štetiar]

Koen Kooi <k.kooi@student.utwente.nl> [2010-10-14 15:22:05]:

> It means you need to use angstrom or set is as override in local.conf

Ok, but would this work for example (it's not real life example)?

local.conf - SOC_FAMILY="ts7400"
machine/ts7xxx.inc - common stuff for all the boards
machine/ts72xx.conf - include ts7xxx.inc and add board specific stuff
machine/ts7250.conf - include ts72xx.conf and add board specific stuff
machine/ts7260.conf - include ts72xx.conf and CF support
machine/ts73xx.conf - include ts7xxx.inc and board specific stuff (FPGA + video)
machine/ts74xx.conf - include ts7xxx.inc and add SD card support

can I than use this as some kind of overrides? Say I'll need to have different
options in some of the packages and I would need to use something like this:

PACKAGE_ARCH += "${SOC_FAMILY}"
SRC_URI_append_ts7xxx += "file://common.patch"
SRC_URI_append_ts7260 += "file://compact-flash.patch"
SRC_URI_append_ts74xx += "file://sd-card.patch"
SRC_URI_append_ts73xx += "file://fpga.patch"

Because as I've seen the usage of the SOC_FAMILY in the recipes I don't think
it would be possible. Thanks for the answer, or more specific example.

-- ynezz