[Buildroot] Sample configurations / test suite ?

[Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>]

Dear Arnout Vandecappelle,

On Mon, 01 Jul 2013 08:00:02 +0200, Arnout Vandecappelle wrote:

> > What do you think about this? Do you have ideas on how to implement
> > this? Should it be part of the Buildroot tree itself, or something
> > separate? If something separate, how do we keep Buildroot and this
> > separate tree in sync?
> 
>   For both use cases, it makes the most sense if these defconfigs are 
> part of the buildroot tree.

In order to keep those configurations consistent with the rest of
Buildroot, I agree that having them in the Buildroot tree is probably
the easiest option. However, I'm worried about the size of it: I was
not only thinking of defconfigs, but potentially additional artifacts
needed to make the build work.

>   The risk is that the configs/ directory becomes too large and unwieldy 
> (people will have to browse it to find the defconfig they want). So 
> perhaps this calls for changing it into a tree.
> 
>   Personally, I think it makes sense to move the defconfigs into the 
> board/ directory. Many defconfigs already refer into there for kernel 
> configs or specific patches, so it makes sense to put the defconfig in 
> the same place.

Funnily enough, the defconfigs *used* to be in the board/ directory
(which at the time was target/device). We had a discussion back in the
days on whether the defconfigs should remain with their board, or
grouped in the top-level configs/ directory.

See
http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/buildroot/2009-October/029556.html
and my complaint
http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/buildroot/2009-October/029559.html.

That said, after several years, I feel that configs/ was a pretty good
choice, I don't really feel the need of moving things back to board/,
especially considering the change it will cause to all users.

Moreover, I am not sure that those test suite / demos
configurations should be located in the same place as the minimal
defconfigs we have in configs/.

>   And while I'm on this subject, I think the structure of the board 
> directory is not very clear. It would make sense to me to switch to the 
> layout that U-Boot uses: board/<arch>/<soc>/<boardname>/ (although the 
> <soc> level may be optional for us). You can expect people to know what 
> the basic architecture of the processor is, but not always who the vendor 
> is (which is probably why raspberrypi, beaglebone and gnublin don't have 
> a vendor directory). Or sometimes there are multiple vendors for the same 
> board (e.g. Beagleboard and SabreLite).

Hmm, no strong opinion on this one. How many end users know which SoC
the RasberryPi is using?

Best regards,

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, Free Electrons
Kernel, drivers, real-time and embedded Linux
development, consulting, training and support.
http://free-electrons.com