[Buildroot] How-to export cross-toolchain and libraries to a build server?

[Buildroot] How-to export cross-toolchain and libraries to a build server?

[Fabrice Mousset | GEOCEPT GmbH]

Hi all,

I have create a Buildroot BSP for the phyCORE-AM335x board based on the PTXdist BSP PD13.1.2 from Phytec.
This have been done on my working station.
Now I want to migrate the cross-toolchain, libraries and some binaries like qmake, to our build server (Jenkins).
What is the best way to do this?
Do I have to enable to "Eclipse support"?

Thanks for any advice

Best regards

Fabrice Mousset

[Buildroot] How-to export cross-toolchain and libraries to a build server?

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Dear Fabrice Mousset | GEOCEPT GmbH,

On Tue, 11 Nov 2014 07:28:14 +0000, Fabrice Mousset | GEOCEPT GmbH
wrote:

> I have create a Buildroot BSP for the phyCORE-AM335x board based on the PTXdist BSP PD13.1.2 from Phytec.
> This have been done on my working station.
> Now I want to migrate the cross-toolchain, libraries and some binaries like qmake, to our build server (Jenkins).
> What is the best way to do this?

Just tar the contents of output/host. However, beware that right now
the SDK is not relocatable, so you'll have to install it to the exact
same location on other machines. In general, the default location in
output/host is not very nice, so you can use the BR2_HOST_DIR
configuration option to change where the host directory gets
stored, and therefore put it for example in /opt/buildroot-sdk/, and
then tar this.

Making the SDK relocatable is on our TODO list. There is a list of the
issues to fix and some possible solutions at
http://elinux.org/Buildroot#Core_Buildroot_infrastructure.

> Do I have to enable to "Eclipse support"?

No, the Eclipse support is orthogonal to this. The Eclipse support will
only write one line to $HOME/.buildroot-eclipse.toolchains for each
Buildroot toolchain that has been built on the system, so that Eclipse
cna easily show the available toolchain when the Buildroot Eclipse
plug-in is installed.

Best regards,

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, CTO, Free Electrons
Embedded Linux, Kernel and Android engineering
http://free-electrons.com

[Buildroot] How-to export cross-toolchain and libraries to a build server?

[Fabrice Mousset | GEOCEPT GmbH]

Dear Thomas,

thanks a lot for your quick reply.
I will follow your advice and use BR2_HOST_DIR to fixe SDK location.
So I will have a quick solution to move the SDK to our build server.

I will also take a closer look at the TODO list, and perhaps I could contribute to buildroot to help integrating a relocatable SDK generation, which will be a very nice and useful feature.
But I think, I will have to learn a lot of thinks about the internals of buildroot before.

Best regards

Fabrice

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Thomas Petazzoni [mailto:thomas.petazzoni at free-electrons.com] 
Gesendet: Dienstag, 11. November 2014 10:25
An: Fabrice Mousset | GEOCEPT GmbH
Cc: 'buildroot at busybox.net'
Betreff: Re: [Buildroot] How-to export cross-toolchain and libraries to a build server?

Dear Fabrice Mousset | GEOCEPT GmbH,

On Tue, 11 Nov 2014 07:28:14 +0000, Fabrice Mousset | GEOCEPT GmbH
wrote:

> I have create a Buildroot BSP for the phyCORE-AM335x board based on the PTXdist BSP PD13.1.2 from Phytec.
> This have been done on my working station.
> Now I want to migrate the cross-toolchain, libraries and some binaries like qmake, to our build server (Jenkins).
> What is the best way to do this?

Just tar the contents of output/host. However, beware that right now the SDK is not relocatable, so you'll have to install it to the exact same location on other machines. In general, the default location in output/host is not very nice, so you can use the BR2_HOST_DIR configuration option to change where the host directory gets stored, and therefore put it for example in /opt/buildroot-sdk/, and then tar this.

Making the SDK relocatable is on our TODO list. There is a list of the issues to fix and some possible solutions at http://elinux.org/Buildroot#Core_Buildroot_infrastructure.

> Do I have to enable to "Eclipse support"?

No, the Eclipse support is orthogonal to this. The Eclipse support will only write one line to $HOME/.buildroot-eclipse.toolchains for each Buildroot toolchain that has been built on the system, so that Eclipse cna easily show the available toolchain when the Buildroot Eclipse plug-in is installed.

Best regards,

Thomas
--
Thomas Petazzoni, CTO, Free Electrons
Embedded Linux, Kernel and Android engineering http://free-electrons.com

[Buildroot] How-to export cross-toolchain and libraries to a build server?

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Dear Fabrice Mousset | GEOCEPT GmbH,

On Tue, 11 Nov 2014 09:43:02 +0000, Fabrice Mousset | GEOCEPT GmbH
wrote:

> thanks a lot for your quick reply.
> I will follow your advice and use BR2_HOST_DIR to fixe SDK location.
> So I will have a quick solution to move the SDK to our build server.

Ok. Let us know if that works.

> I will also take a closer look at the TODO list, and perhaps I could contribute to buildroot to help integrating a relocatable SDK generation, which will be a very nice and useful feature.
> But I think, I will have to learn a lot of thinks about the internals of buildroot before.

Sure, your contributions would be very welcome! But indeed, working on
making the SDK relocatable is clearly not the easiest thing to get
started with the Buildroot internals.

Best regards,

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, CTO, Free Electrons
Embedded Linux, Kernel and Android engineering
http://free-electrons.com

[Buildroot] How-to export cross-toolchain and libraries to a build server?

[Fabrice Mousset | GEOCEPT GmbH]

Hi Thomas,

it works :-)

I have built my BSP with BR2_HOST_DIR (make BR2_HOST_DIR=/opt/crosstools/am335x) and made an archive of it (tar cJf am335x-sdk.tar.xz /opt/crosstools/am335x). Then expand this archive on the build server.
And it simply works, Jenkins is now able to build Qt5 projects for my board.
The SDK is quiet big (about 57MB), but it is a simple and quick solution.
I will try to spend time on "relocatable SDK generation" in the next weeks to see if an easier/smarter solution is possible.

Thanks a lot for your support

Best regards

Fabrice

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Thomas Petazzoni [mailto:thomas.petazzoni at free-electrons.com] 
Gesendet: Dienstag, 11. November 2014 10:50
An: Fabrice Mousset | GEOCEPT GmbH
Cc: 'buildroot at busybox.net'
Betreff: Re: [Buildroot] How-to export cross-toolchain and libraries to a build server?

Dear Fabrice Mousset | GEOCEPT GmbH,

On Tue, 11 Nov 2014 09:43:02 +0000, Fabrice Mousset | GEOCEPT GmbH
wrote:

> thanks a lot for your quick reply.
> I will follow your advice and use BR2_HOST_DIR to fixe SDK location.
> So I will have a quick solution to move the SDK to our build server.

Ok. Let us know if that works.

> I will also take a closer look at the TODO list, and perhaps I could contribute to buildroot to help integrating a relocatable SDK generation, which will be a very nice and useful feature.
> But I think, I will have to learn a lot of thinks about the internals of buildroot before.

Sure, your contributions would be very welcome! But indeed, working on making the SDK relocatable is clearly not the easiest thing to get started with the Buildroot internals.

Best regards,

Thomas
--
Thomas Petazzoni, CTO, Free Electrons
Embedded Linux, Kernel and Android engineering http://free-electrons.com

[Buildroot] How-to export cross-toolchain and libraries to a build server?

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Hello,

On Tue, 11 Nov 2014 12:10:22 +0000, Fabrice Mousset | GEOCEPT GmbH
wrote:

> it works :-)

Cool!

> I have built my BSP with BR2_HOST_DIR (make BR2_HOST_DIR=/opt/crosstools/am335x) and made an archive of it (tar cJf am335x-sdk.tar.xz /opt/crosstools/am335x). Then expand this archive on the build server.
> And it simply works, Jenkins is now able to build Qt5 projects for my board.

Great.

> The SDK is quiet big (about 57MB), but it is a simple and quick solution.

57 MB are you sure? This looks very small to me, when you count the
toolchain + all the Qt5 libraries and headers.

> I will try to spend time on "relocatable SDK generation" in the next weeks to see if an easier/smarter solution is possible.

Great, looking forward to see contributions in this area!

Best regards,

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, CTO, Free Electrons
Embedded Linux, Kernel and Android engineering
http://free-electrons.com