From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Thomas Petazzoni Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 07:09:34 +0200 Subject: [Buildroot] [PATCH] Add package raspberrypi-firmware. In-Reply-To: <201209172350.27316.yann.morin.1998@free.fr> References: <1347914057-20287-1-git-send-email-marek.belisko@open-nandra.com> <201209172301.54610.yann.morin.1998@free.fr> <201209172350.27316.yann.morin.1998@free.fr> Message-ID: <20120918070934.2e3182bf@skate> List-Id: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: buildroot@busybox.net Dear Yann E. MORIN, On Mon, 17 Sep 2012 23:50:27 +0200, Yann E. MORIN wrote: > What would be the interest to install the GPU boot files, but not install > the VideoCore libraries? Or the other way around, what would be the intrest > to install the VidoeCore library without the GPU boot files? The GPU boot files are needed to actually boot the ARM processor. So technically speaking, they are some kind of first-stage bootloader for the ARM processor, even if they get executed on the GPU. So, if you want to use the RasberryPi, you *must* install those GPU boot files. However, if you're not using the RasberryPi for a 3D graphical application, you don't necessarily need the VideoCore library files. So I think it makes sense to be able to install the GPU boot files separately from the VideoCore library. The underlying problem here is a fundamental weakness in Buildroot design: the absence of separation between source packages and binary packages. We have the same situation quite often for other things. For example the "curl" package. It provides both a library "libcurl", and a program "curl" that relies on that library. Should this package be under "Libraries -> Networking" or under "Networking applications" ? Ditto for many, many of our packages. Thomas -- Thomas Petazzoni, Free Electrons Kernel, drivers, real-time and embedded Linux development, consulting, training and support. http://free-electrons.com