Introducing meta-beagleboard

Introducing meta-beagleboard

[Jason Kridner]

To help foster fast development, future releases of the Angstrom
Distribution that ships with BeagleBoard.org platforms (such as
BeagleBone and BeagleBoard-xM) will be built using meta-beagleboard,
rather than meta-ti. While this produces the seemingly undesirable
effect of providing yet-another-BSP for BeagleBoard.org platforms,
collaboration in the mainline kernel and bootloaders that are the key
elements for the BSPs has made this possible and multiple goals for
the various BSPs has made it desirable.

The objectives for meta-beagleboard are:
1) Provide the best possible out-of-box-experience for BeagleBoard.org platforms
2) Enable as much add-on hardware as possible
3) Enable public contributions to extend the experience and hardware support
4) Deliver information to the BeagleBoard.org community regarding the
development status

The repository will be hosted at:
https://github.com/beagleboard/meta-beagleboard

In addition to the many distributions of Linux picking up support for
the hardware from the mainline Linux kernel or collaboratively pulling
in-work patches from this repository (or the collaborative kernel
repository at http://github.com/beagleboard/kernel), there are various
OpenEmbedded BSP layers available for BeagleBoard.org platforms with
other objectives. These BSPs can be very useful to you depending on
your purpose and I've listed some here to position them relative to
meta-beagleboard.

http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/meta-ti/:
* Provide a basis for building TI SDKs
* Enable collaborative inputs from community developers seeking to
improve the BSPs used in TI SDKs
* Deliver BSPs that work with only oe-core required, compatible with
meta-yocto, meta-arago and other distro layers
* Provide a clear definition of what is supported by TI

http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/meta-yocto/:
* Provide a reference for building Yocto BSPs
* Provide a reference for utilizing a common kernel across Yocto
reference platforms

meta-beagleboard is seeking to participate in the Yocto Project and
provide reference for the other BSPs to utilize. However, its focused
objectives enable faster support for BeagleBoard.org platforms. Support
for the layer will come from Koen, Joel, myself and other CircuitCo or
TI employees supporting BeagleBoard.org---and of course any other
people who wish to contribute to the project. Where it is simple and
sane to do so, the components in meta-ti will simply be used.

I hope you see clear value from the existence of this new layer and
how it helps accelerate development and foster both quality and
collaboration. Thanks for your kind support.

Best regards,
Jason Kridner
TI and BeagleBoard.org

Re: Introducing meta-beagleboard

[Denys Dmytriyenko]

On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 11:46:36AM -0400, Jason Kridner wrote:
> To help foster fast development, future releases of the Angstrom
> Distribution that ships with BeagleBoard.org platforms (such as
> BeagleBone and BeagleBoard-xM) will be built using meta-beagleboard,
> rather than meta-ti. While this produces the seemingly undesirable
> effect of providing yet-another-BSP for BeagleBoard.org platforms,
> collaboration in the mainline kernel and bootloaders that are the key
> elements for the BSPs has made this possible and multiple goals for
> the various BSPs has made it desirable.

Thank you, Jason!

Before everyone freaks out - this is a good thing. This will enable meta-ti 
and meta-beagleboard to achieve their respective goals, as it relates to the 
common BeagleBone and BeagleBoard-xM platforms, w/o slowing or impeding each 
other. Thank you for your understanding.

-- 
Denys


> The objectives for meta-beagleboard are:
> 1) Provide the best possible out-of-box-experience for BeagleBoard.org platforms
> 2) Enable as much add-on hardware as possible
> 3) Enable public contributions to extend the experience and hardware support
> 4) Deliver information to the BeagleBoard.org community regarding the
> development status
> 
> The repository will be hosted at:
> https://github.com/beagleboard/meta-beagleboard
> 
> In addition to the many distributions of Linux picking up support for
> the hardware from the mainline Linux kernel or collaboratively pulling
> in-work patches from this repository (or the collaborative kernel
> repository at http://github.com/beagleboard/kernel), there are various
> OpenEmbedded BSP layers available for BeagleBoard.org platforms with
> other objectives. These BSPs can be very useful to you depending on
> your purpose and I've listed some here to position them relative to
> meta-beagleboard.
> 
> http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/meta-ti/:
> * Provide a basis for building TI SDKs
> * Enable collaborative inputs from community developers seeking to
> improve the BSPs used in TI SDKs
> * Deliver BSPs that work with only oe-core required, compatible with
> meta-yocto, meta-arago and other distro layers
> * Provide a clear definition of what is supported by TI
> 
> http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/meta-yocto/:
> * Provide a reference for building Yocto BSPs
> * Provide a reference for utilizing a common kernel across Yocto
> reference platforms
> 
> meta-beagleboard is seeking to participate in the Yocto Project and
> provide reference for the other BSPs to utilize. However, its focused
> objectives enable faster support for BeagleBoard.org platforms. Support
> for the layer will come from Koen, Joel, myself and other CircuitCo or
> TI employees supporting BeagleBoard.org---and of course any other
> people who wish to contribute to the project. Where it is simple and
> sane to do so, the components in meta-ti will simply be used.
> 
> I hope you see clear value from the existence of this new layer and
> how it helps accelerate development and foster both quality and
> collaboration. Thanks for your kind support.
> 
> Best regards,
> Jason Kridner
> TI and BeagleBoard.org
> _______________________________________________
> meta-ti mailing list
> meta-ti@yoctoproject.org
> https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/meta-ti

Re: Introducing meta-beagleboard

[Jack Mitchell]

On 11/10/12 16:46, Jason Kridner wrote:
> To help foster fast development, future releases of the Angstrom
> Distribution that ships with BeagleBoard.org platforms (such as
> BeagleBone and BeagleBoard-xM) will be built using meta-beagleboard,
> rather than meta-ti. While this produces the seemingly undesirable
> effect of providing yet-another-BSP for BeagleBoard.org platforms,
> collaboration in the mainline kernel and bootloaders that are the key
> elements for the BSPs has made this possible and multiple goals for
> the various BSPs has made it desirable.
>
> The objectives for meta-beagleboard are:
> 1) Provide the best possible out-of-box-experience for BeagleBoard.org platforms
> 2) Enable as much add-on hardware as possible
> 3) Enable public contributions to extend the experience and hardware support
> 4) Deliver information to the BeagleBoard.org community regarding the
> development status
>
> The repository will be hosted at:
> https://github.com/beagleboard/meta-beagleboard

Great news! Will the kernel in this BSP be attempting to follow mainline 
+ public patches? I'm chomping at the bit for an easy way to build a 
tested DT kernel with recent patches.

-- 

   Jack Mitchell (jack@embed.me.uk)
   Embedded Systems Engineer
   http://www.embed.me.uk

--

Re: Introducing meta-beagleboard

[Denys Dmytriyenko]

On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 11:24:35AM +0100, Jack Mitchell wrote:
> On 11/10/12 16:46, Jason Kridner wrote:
> >To help foster fast development, future releases of the Angstrom
> >Distribution that ships with BeagleBoard.org platforms (such as
> >BeagleBone and BeagleBoard-xM) will be built using meta-beagleboard,
> >rather than meta-ti. While this produces the seemingly undesirable
> >effect of providing yet-another-BSP for BeagleBoard.org platforms,
> >collaboration in the mainline kernel and bootloaders that are the key
> >elements for the BSPs has made this possible and multiple goals for
> >the various BSPs has made it desirable.
> >
> >The objectives for meta-beagleboard are:
> >1) Provide the best possible out-of-box-experience for BeagleBoard.org platforms
> >2) Enable as much add-on hardware as possible
> >3) Enable public contributions to extend the experience and hardware support
> >4) Deliver information to the BeagleBoard.org community regarding the
> >development status
> >
> >The repository will be hosted at:
> >https://github.com/beagleboard/meta-beagleboard
> 
> Great news! Will the kernel in this BSP be attempting to follow
> mainline + public patches? I'm chomping at the bit for an easy way
> to build a tested DT kernel with recent patches.

Jack,

Here's a little bit of information to help you and others understand the 
situation a bit better.

The beagleboard kernel recipe in meta-ti was already following mainline + 
public patches. As of the beaglebone:

The mainline kernel team for am335x inside TI has been hard at work pushing 
patches upstream for quite a while now. You can see significant improvements 
in the mainline kernel already, even in 3.6, when it comes to supporting 
am335x. But the goal is to have most, if not all, of the features in place by 
the time Linus releases 3.8 kernel. According to the schedule, that is around 
the end of this year or early next year.

Due to limited resources of testing and validation, the integration team 
decided to not spend time on kernels between the last staging (i.e. PSP) 3.2 
kernel and 3.8, when everything is available in mainline.

Unfortunately, that does not work for BeagleBoard.org and Koen needs mainline 
support sooner, integrating incomplete 3.6 and 3.7 with the work-in-progress 
patches. That's one of the points behind creating meta-beagleboard layer.

That said, meta-ti will also be switching to the mainline kernel once it is 
available, i.e. with 3.8 release. It's just that meta-beagleboard gets there 
sooner... :)

-- 
Denys

Re: Introducing meta-beagleboard

[Jack Mitchell]

On 12/10/12 15:04, Denys Dmytriyenko wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 11:24:35AM +0100, Jack Mitchell wrote:
>> On 11/10/12 16:46, Jason Kridner wrote:
>>> To help foster fast development, future releases of the Angstrom
>>> Distribution that ships with BeagleBoard.org platforms (such as
>>> BeagleBone and BeagleBoard-xM) will be built using meta-beagleboard,
>>> rather than meta-ti. While this produces the seemingly undesirable
>>> effect of providing yet-another-BSP for BeagleBoard.org platforms,
>>> collaboration in the mainline kernel and bootloaders that are the key
>>> elements for the BSPs has made this possible and multiple goals for
>>> the various BSPs has made it desirable.
>>>
>>> The objectives for meta-beagleboard are:
>>> 1) Provide the best possible out-of-box-experience for BeagleBoard.org platforms
>>> 2) Enable as much add-on hardware as possible
>>> 3) Enable public contributions to extend the experience and hardware support
>>> 4) Deliver information to the BeagleBoard.org community regarding the
>>> development status
>>>
>>> The repository will be hosted at:
>>> https://github.com/beagleboard/meta-beagleboard
>> Great news! Will the kernel in this BSP be attempting to follow
>> mainline + public patches? I'm chomping at the bit for an easy way
>> to build a tested DT kernel with recent patches.
> Jack,
>
> Here's a little bit of information to help you and others understand the
> situation a bit better.
>
> The beagleboard kernel recipe in meta-ti was already following mainline +
> public patches. As of the beaglebone:
>
> The mainline kernel team for am335x inside TI has been hard at work pushing
> patches upstream for quite a while now. You can see significant improvements
> in the mainline kernel already, even in 3.6, when it comes to supporting
> am335x. But the goal is to have most, if not all, of the features in place by
> the time Linus releases 3.8 kernel. According to the schedule, that is around
> the end of this year or early next year.
>
> Due to limited resources of testing and validation, the integration team
> decided to not spend time on kernels between the last staging (i.e. PSP) 3.2
> kernel and 3.8, when everything is available in mainline.
>
> Unfortunately, that does not work for BeagleBoard.org and Koen needs mainline
> support sooner, integrating incomplete 3.6 and 3.7 with the work-in-progress
> patches. That's one of the points behind creating meta-beagleboard layer.
>
> That said, meta-ti will also be switching to the mainline kernel once it is
> available, i.e. with 3.8 release. It's just that meta-beagleboard gets there
> sooner... :)
>

Perfect, thank you Denys. That also explains why the PSP releases for 
the BBone haven't been very forthcoming. I have been watching the 
mainline patches come in but didn't realise that TI were heading for 3.8 
'full' support. I will be looking forward to it, I can almost taste that 
eDMA

Cheers,

-- 

   Jack Mitchell (jack@embed.me.uk)
   Embedded Systems Engineer
   http://www.embed.me.uk

--