Re: Machine config generator (FOSDEM idea)

[Otavio Salvador <otavio@debian.org>]

Marcin Juszkiewicz <openembedded@haerwu.biz> writes:

> Hi
>
> I was talking during FOSDEM with some developers and one of things which 
> I was asked about was 'how to create machine config' (usually question 
> was other but had this sense).
>
> OE developers usually know that machine config is simple but tell that 
> to Joe Random who only knows that his board use s3c2443 etc. So idea was 
> to create simple few steps wizard which will ask few questions and 
> produce machine config as result. More work would be required on 
> creating kernel recipe because kernel can be from svn/cvs/git or tarball 
> + quilt patchset etc...
>
> Thats only beginning of idea - I hope that someone will provide 
> feedback.

I see the pros for it but I also think it will not help too much; the
most difficult problem is to understand OE as a whole and how the
packages can affect each other.

It takes a while to identify the failures and to cook up a fix for those
problems.

What will be the use of a machine definition without a kernel config for
it? And let's be real, if the person knows how to compile the kernel for
it then I'm absolute sure that the machine definition won't be problem.

What I do think could be useful is a more detailed set of "Quick Start
Guide" having one for each really common task. The set of tasks I
believe are common for regular users are:

 - adding a new package version
 - adding a new package
 - creating a distribution based in another
 - adding a new machine

This small set solves 90% of problems people usually have and as a plus
help the end user to understand OE in more deep; as a bonus we can end
up having more people giving back the generated changes.

My 2c.

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