[Buildroot] What's up with the kernel names? (Again)

[Ulf Samuelsson <ulf.samuelsson@atmel.com>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Korsgaard" <jacmet@uclibc.org>
To: <ulf.samuelsson@atmel.com>
Cc: "Peter Korsgaard" <jacmet@uclibc.org>; "Thiago A.Corr?a" 
<thiago.correa@gmail.com>; <buildroot@uclibc.org>
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 9:41 AM
Subject: Re: [Buildroot] What's up with the kernel names? (Again)


>>>>>> "Ulf" == Ulf Samuelsson <ulf.samuelsson@atmel.com> writes:
>
> >> To me the sane thing would just be for the files to be named whatever
> >> the kernel names them (uImage/zImage/bzImage/..), but even if we don't
> >> do that we should atleast make the 2 Linux types use the same style.
>
> >> We can add BR2_KERNEL_PREFIX/SUFFIX (defaulting to "") if people
> >> really to do something special.
> >>
> >> Ulf, what do you say?
> >>
>
> Ulf> I think that we should have a symbolic link to xImage as we do for
> Ulf> u-boot.bin for those that do not like the more complex filenames.
> Ulf> Then there is no need for a
>
> I think the suggestion to either use the rootfs suffix/prefix or
> introduce a kernel version of them makes more sense than adding more
> clutter with symlinks (and the potential problems they give)
>
> Ulf> uImage really does not give you *any* information on the contents.
>
> Similar to rootfs.powerpc.squashfs doesn't tell you much about what
> files you have in there.

> When people see uImage or u-boot.bin, it's
> completely clear what type of image format it is, as that's what they
> are used to from compiling the kernel/u-boot/whatever by hand.
>

Yes, but again, when you work on multiple boards, it is a useless name
If you look at commercial linux support (aty least Timesys), they do not 
distribute
files called "uImage", their naming is similar to the current.

If symlinks are no good, and I dont understand why, then a duplicate would 
work for me.

> Ulf> When testing several configurations for the same kernel,
> Ulf> adding some kind of revision information is important.
> Ulf> THat is why the date is there, a little simplistic, but
> Ulf> it works for me.
>
> That's the point I guess - It's a pretty random decission that
> obviously doesn't work for others.
>
> This unstable kernel name doesn't work very well with scripts - E.G. I
> have an updatelinux script in U-Boot which downloads a fixed filename
> from tftp and writes it to flash.
>
> But sure, we can support *_SUFFIX set to $(DATE) for the people who
> wants something like that.
>
> -- 
> Bye, Peter Korsgaard
>

Can we agree on
$(PROJECT)-linux-$(LINUX_VERSION)$(<XXX>_SUFFIX).$(<XXX>_EXT)

and leave $(DATE) in SUFFIX?

This is a stable name, and also gives the information I require.


Best Regards
Ulf Samuelsson