[Buildroot] Addition of packages: libvirt & qemu (target)

[Arnout Vandecappelle <arnout@mind.be>]

On 03/03/14 10:48, Michael D wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> First up, thanks for buildroot, its a really cool tool, and I've enjoyed
> using it thus far. After some discussion on IRC with y_morin, I'd like to
> put forward that the libvirt package is added, and that qemu is adapted
> to support being installed on the target as well. 

 Just out of curiosity, what is your use case for qemu on the target?
IIRC for Yann is was just a let's-see-if-it-can-be-done hack, that's why
he never pushed it anymore. I can imagine borderline buildroot uses which
have lxr or docker on the target, but full-fledged qemu?


> libvirt is a fairly
> standard autotools package, and shouldn't require much work, although I
> did notice ./configure checked for some host qemu binaries.
> 
> You can see Yann's work on libvirt and target-qemu here:
> https://gitorious.org/buildroot/buildroot/source/e09cf6e8d412cfd6163358fc7f58c83f44cc0a38:package/libvirt
> 
> https://gitorious.org/buildroot/buildroot/source/14ac053363188981cf7fb78b589a9e27fb464483:package/qemu
> 
> 
> and my inexperienced, hackjob work over here, updates the packages to
> their latest versions and removes unneeded depends:
> https://github.com/md-5/Multiplicity/tree/master/package
> 
> libvirt requires the following depends to work:
> 
> host-pkgconf lvm2 libnl libxml2 yajl
> 
> In order for the configure script to detect yajl properly, it needs a
> (e)glibc toolchain. This is due to yajl requiring -lm, which is not
> linked into the test binary. A better solution than requiring (e)glibc
> would be to patch libvirt's ./configure to link in -lm for the yajl test.

 You can typically also pass in LIBS="-lm" to configure.

> Yann's work on libvirt also depends on
> 
> libgcrypt and gnutls
> 
> which I assume add extra features. Ideally libvirt's depend section
> should be updated if these (and any other feature enhancing) packages are
> selected.
> 
> Building Qemu for the target on the other hand is quite a bit more
> complex due to the sheer number of configuration options available. In
> particular it depends on a x86 based toolchain with threads, and
> 
> host-pkgconf host-python libglib2 pixman
> 
> I'm reasonably sure Qemu can compile and run on other arches, however
> Yann has not included support for this. Ideally the final package in
> buildroot would only require these 4 libraries to build, additional
> depends and features should be added with their necessary options and
> installed if desired (util-linux, some sound libraries, and a lot of
> graphics libraries for jpg/png manipulation).
> 
> Anyway, enough of me talking, it would be great to see these two packages
> become properly integrated into buildroot, and I am hoping someone can
> manage it.
> 
> If it helps sweeten the deal, I'll be more than happy to donate some beer
> money to the successful contributors, or donate to the buildroot project.
> I'll also be more than happy to make sure these packages stay updated and
> working.

 We don't really have a way for accepting donations, but what we could
use is:

- more autobuilder instances;

- sponsoring for the buildroot developer meeting.


 Regards,
 Arnout


> 
> Thanks
> Michael Dardis
> 
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> 


-- 
Arnout Vandecappelle                          arnout at mind be
Senior Embedded Software Architect            +32-16-286500
Essensium/Mind                                http://www.mind.be
G.Geenslaan 9, 3001 Leuven, Belgium           BE 872 984 063 RPR Leuven
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