Re: image.bbclass: USE_DEVFS is now useless

[Phil Blundell <pb@pbcl.net>]

On Tue, 2014-04-01 at 18:51 +0100, Richard Purdie wrote:
> On Tue, 2014-04-01 at 18:48 +0100, Phil Blundell wrote:
> > Also note that the default for USE_DEVFS was (and is) 1, so the lack
> > of this check is actually causing a difference in the default
> > behaviour.  If there's no appetite for reinstating the USE_DEVFS
> > mechanism per se then it seems like it would be a good idea to make
> > the default IMAGE_DEVICE_TABLE be blank in order to restore the
> > previous default of no /dev in the rootfs.  
> >
> > At present you get a somewhat arbitrary-seeming smattering of devices
> > from meta/files/device_table-minimal.txt, including such anachronisms
> > as /dev/ttySA0 and /dev/apm_bios.  It's hard to imagine that anybody
> > actually wants this stuff in their rootfs in this day and age.
> 
> Can we kill apmd at the same time? Please? :)

I can't see why not.  I'd be surprised if there were many/any real users
left, beyond possibly some legacy stuff in meta-handheld, and it
definitely doesn't seem "core" by any reasonable interpretation of the
term.  

Apart from packagegrounds, the only recipe in oe-core that mentions a
dependency on apmd is matchbox-panel (for the battery applet
presumably); that dependency is conditional on having apm in
MACHINE_FEATURES (which it isn't by default), and it seems a bit fishy
anyway since I can't immediately think of a reason why matchbox-panel
would need the actual daemon.

So, I think it should probably be safe to just rescind support for both
apmd and the MACHINE_FEATURE apm in oe-core.  If meta-handheld, meta-oe
or anybody else wants to keep apmd then they can do so in their own
layers although I rather hope that nobody does.

p.