Re: [yocto] Fw: Inquiry and Proposal: Method to Identify Package Containing a Specific Binary

[Mikko Rapeli <mikko.rapeli@linaro.org>]

Hi,

On Wed, Jul 03, 2024 at 10:27:58AM +0200, Mike Looijmans via lists.yoctoproject.org wrote:
> On 03-07-2024 08:02, Chris via lists.yoctoproject.org wrote:
> > >   Dear Yocto Community,
> > >   I am reaching out to inquire whether there currently exists a method within the Yocto Project to identify which package contains a specific binary. Recently, I encountered a situation where I needed the sfdisk utility. Initially, I installed the util-linux package, assuming it included sfdisk. However, I later discovered that I needed to install util-linux-sfdisk to obtain the utility, after searching the mailing list archives. A similar situation occurred when searching for the package that contained the mkfs.ext4 utility. Eventually I discovered it was the e2fsprogs package, however I feel searching could be improved.
> 
> Been there, done that, yeah.

Ditto.
 
> > >   If there is no existing method to easily determine which package provides a specific binary, I would like to propose the development of such a tool. This tool would greatly assist in adding dependencies to recipes, making the process less cumbersome and reducing the likelihood of similar issues.
> > >   Additionally, if creating such a tool is not feasible, I suggest adding a "Provides" section to the recipe pages on the OpenEmbedded Layer Index (e.g., https://layers.openembedded.org/layerindex/recipe/XYZ). This section would list the binaries that each package installs, helping users quickly ascertain whether a given binary is included in a package.
> 
> It's not feasible to create such a tool. The list of binaries a package
> creates often depends on package configuration, machine and distro
> capabilities and other things.
> 
> 
> > >   I believe these enhancements would significantly improve the efficiency of the Yocto Project for all users. I welcome any feedback or discussion on this matter and look forward to your thoughts.
> 
> My solution is usually to run "apt search" on my desktop PC and use the
> output as a hint to find the package that provides it. That works for fdisk
> and mkfs and tools like that.
> 
> What would be possible is that if someone did build "world", one could
> publish the resulting package databases for other people to search. That
> wouldn't solve everything for everyone, but it would at least help find most
> of the common things.

Except even a world build does not help since it does not enable all possible
distro and machine features and packageconfig flags (how to even discover
all available machine and distro features, packageconfig flags with bitbake?),
and rarely has the exact same set of meta layers which users would have for
the non-trivial product configs. Also the search needs to cover binaries,
shared libraries, header files, config files etc.

In practice I search the Internet, check Debian/Ubuntu, use buildhistory with
yocto builds and git grep there, check layer index for clues.

For the record, I don't think desktop distros solve this problem well.
No-one controls the binary file namespace so there is also overlap. Some of
the overlap is visible as preferred provider tweaks which gives hints but
also easily confuses new users.

Cheers,

-Mikko