Getting started on creating a layer for OE-Core

Getting started on creating a layer for OE-Core

[Ken Werner]

Hi,

I'm currently reading the OpenEmbedded User Manual and wondering what's 
the best way to add a layer for the Linaro toolchain components (Linaro 
GCC, Linaro GDB). This is my first time with OE. I just setup the 
environment and started to build an image that targets qemuarm (bitbake 
is still building). Any suggestions or general help is much appreciated.

Thanks,
Ken

Re: Getting started on creating a layer for OE-Core

[Koen Kooi]

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Op 22 nov. 2011, om 18:59 heeft Ken Werner het volgende geschreven:

> Hi,
> 
> I'm currently reading the OpenEmbedded User Manual and wondering what's the best way to add a layer for the Linaro toolchain components

You do know that the gcc 4.6 in OE-core and gcc 4.5 in meta-oe already have all the linaro patches (minus the ones that introduces bugs), right?



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Re: Getting started on creating a layer for OE-Core

[Paul Eggleton]

On Tuesday 22 November 2011 19:02:55 Koen Kooi wrote:
> You do know that the gcc 4.6 in OE-core and gcc 4.5 in meta-oe already have
> all the linaro patches (minus the ones that introduces bugs), right?

How would one find that out? I mean, without looking at every patch we have in 
our toolchain...

Cheers,
Paul

-- 

Paul Eggleton
Intel Open Source Technology Centre

Re: Getting started on creating a layer for OE-Core

[Ken Werner]

On 11/22/2011 07:02 PM, Koen Kooi wrote:
>
> Op 22 nov. 2011, om 18:59 heeft Ken Werner het volgende geschreven:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm currently reading the OpenEmbedded User Manual and wondering what's the best way to add a layer for the Linaro toolchain components
>
> You do know that the gcc 4.6 in OE-core and gcc 4.5 in meta-oe already have all the linaro patches (minus the ones that introduces bugs), right?

Oh, I didn't know that - thanks for the heads up. The patches your are 
referring to are among meta/recipes-devtools/gcc/gcc-4.6/*patch, right? 
In this case I guess I'll discuss with the Linaro team on how to proceed 
first. :)

Regards
Ken

Re: Getting started on creating a layer for OE-Core

[Koen Kooi]

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Op 22 nov. 2011, om 19:08 heeft Paul Eggleton het volgende geschreven:

> On Tuesday 22 November 2011 19:02:55 Koen Kooi wrote:
>> You do know that the gcc 4.6 in OE-core and gcc 4.5 in meta-oe already have
>> all the linaro patches (minus the ones that introduces bugs), right?
> 
> How would one find that out? I mean, without looking at every patch we have in 
> our toolchain...

We have been pointing out that fact to various linaro people the past month, most recently at ELC-E and Linaro Connect. If for some reason that hasn't come accross, a 'git grep linaro' would have given you a big clue :)



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Re: Getting started on creating a layer for OE-Core

[Ken Werner]

On 11/22/2011 07:17 PM, Koen Kooi wrote:
>
> Op 22 nov. 2011, om 19:08 heeft Paul Eggleton het volgende geschreven:
>
>> On Tuesday 22 November 2011 19:02:55 Koen Kooi wrote:
>>> You do know that the gcc 4.6 in OE-core and gcc 4.5 in meta-oe already have
>>> all the linaro patches (minus the ones that introduces bugs), right?
>>
>> How would one find that out? I mean, without looking at every patch we have in
>> our toolchain...
>
> We have been pointing out that fact to various linaro people the past month, most recently at ELC-E and Linaro Connect. If for some reason that hasn't come accross, a 'git grep linaro' would have given you a big clue :)

Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend these events. :/
I'll check with some of the people who went there.
Sorry for the noise.

Ken

Re: Getting started on creating a layer for OE-Core

[Philip Balister]

On 11/22/2011 12:59 PM, Ken Werner wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm currently reading the OpenEmbedded User Manual and wondering what's
> the best way to add a layer for the Linaro toolchain components (Linaro
> GCC, Linaro GDB). This is my first time with OE. I just setup the
> environment and started to build an image that targets qemuarm (bitbake
> is still building). Any suggestions or general help is much appreciated.

Can you comment on what you expect to get out of the Linaro toolchain layer?

As had been noted here, OE already has some of the Linaro work in the
toolchains. However, we have had issues with some patches so we can't
run a "complete Linaro toolchain". (Toolchain guys, correct me if I am
wrong)

From my perspective, the Linaro work is great (I primarily use Cortex-A8
devices), but my understanding is that due to Linaro's focus on advanced
ARM processors, regressions for other architectures and older arms can
occur.

So I see the point of a dedicated Linaro tool layer being an excellent
vehicle for testing Linaro's work on a diverse set of machines to make
life easier for people using Linaro's work on other architectures.

Philip

Re: Getting started on creating a layer for OE-Core

[Koen Kooi]

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Op 24 nov. 2011, om 17:59 heeft Philip Balister het volgende geschreven:

> On 11/22/2011 12:59 PM, Ken Werner wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I'm currently reading the OpenEmbedded User Manual and wondering what's
>> the best way to add a layer for the Linaro toolchain components (Linaro
>> GCC, Linaro GDB). This is my first time with OE. I just setup the
>> environment and started to build an image that targets qemuarm (bitbake
>> is still building). Any suggestions or general help is much appreciated.
> 
> Can you comment on what you expect to get out of the Linaro toolchain layer?
> 
> As had been noted here, OE already has some of the Linaro work in the
> toolchains. However, we have had issues with some patches so we can't
> run a "complete Linaro toolchain". (Toolchain guys, correct me if I am
> wrong)

There are 2 sets of problems:

1) OE-core needs to support more than just ARMv7 and up
2) Not every patch is an improvement

For 1) we need to add patches and sometimes take out patches. For 2) we usually remove the patch that breaks things, but sometimes we add a backport.

[..]

> So I see the point of a dedicated Linaro tool layer being an excellent
> vehicle for testing Linaro's work on a diverse set of machines to make
> life easier for people using Linaro's work on other architectures.

The exact same can be said by including most if not all linaro patches into the default toolchain. Having said that, a layer with 'pure' versions of the toolchain, uboot, kernel, etc as reference is a nice thing to have. But since we only have a finite amount of effort to spread around I'd advice working on OE-core instead of a seperate sandbox.

regards,

Koen

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Re: Getting started on creating a layer for OE-Core

[Khem Raj]

On (24/11/11 11:59), Philip Balister wrote:
> On 11/22/2011 12:59 PM, Ken Werner wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I'm currently reading the OpenEmbedded User Manual and wondering what's
> > the best way to add a layer for the Linaro toolchain components (Linaro
> > GCC, Linaro GDB). This is my first time with OE. I just setup the
> > environment and started to build an image that targets qemuarm (bitbake
> > is still building). Any suggestions or general help is much appreciated.
> 
> Can you comment on what you expect to get out of the Linaro toolchain layer?
> 
> As had been noted here, OE already has some of the Linaro work in the
> toolchains. However, we have had issues with some patches so we can't
> run a "complete Linaro toolchain". (Toolchain guys, correct me if I am
> wrong)


thats correct more often some patches whcih work on arm dont work on
other architectures so the patcheses we cherry pick usually exclude such
regressing patches and its a bit of work to identify them
but on positive side the patches we take get tested on wider
architectures. Also we only take gcc patches no other components

> 
> From my perspective, the Linaro work is great (I primarily use Cortex-A8
> devices), but my understanding is that due to Linaro's focus on advanced
> ARM processors, regressions for other architectures and older arms can
> occur.
> 
> So I see the point of a dedicated Linaro tool layer being an excellent
> vehicle for testing Linaro's work on a diverse set of machines to make
> life easier for people using Linaro's work on other architectures.

linaro layer would be a good idea although I think from distro point of
view they would want a single toolchain doing all architectures and
still would want advantages of linaro work so if this layer takes care
of fixing toolchain for non arm architectures it will be a lot of value
to distros using OE

but as such having layer would be a good thing as well.

> 
> Philip
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Openembedded-core mailing list
> Openembedded-core@lists.openembedded.org
> http://lists.linuxtogo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openembedded-core

-- 
-Khem

Re: Getting started on creating a layer for OE-Core

[Ken Werner]

On 11/24/2011 05:59 PM, Philip Balister wrote:
> On 11/22/2011 12:59 PM, Ken Werner wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm currently reading the OpenEmbedded User Manual and wondering what's
>> the best way to add a layer for the Linaro toolchain components (Linaro
>> GCC, Linaro GDB). This is my first time with OE. I just setup the
>> environment and started to build an image that targets qemuarm (bitbake
>> is still building). Any suggestions or general help is much appreciated.
>
> Can you comment on what you expect to get out of the Linaro toolchain layer?

There are two goals. One is to use OE-core as a testsuite for a 
pre-built binary gcc-linaro. The other is to provide a meta layer that 
always has the latest released gcc-linaro and, in the future, also gdb, 
qemu etc..

Regards
Ken