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Hello Michael, |
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|
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2011/4/27 Michael Haubenwallner <haubi@g.o>: |
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> Hi Piergiorgio, |
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> |
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> On 04/26/11 18:10, Piergiorgio Beruto wrote: |
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>> Hi, |
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>> I'm an embedded sw developer already used to gentoo and portage. |
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> |
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> Is your gentoo and portage usage already related to your embedded development? |
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Actually yes, I've been using Gentoo for several years for a wide |
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range of applications (both for my company and on my own) like |
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routers, L2 switches, servers, multimedia and desktop applications. In |
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fact I love gentoo because of its fexibility, like many other users |
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:-) |
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|
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Embedded development used to be a different kind of beast, but at |
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company level the requirements for "big" embedded projects are the |
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same as for traditional development and I think it's the time to |
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enhance our ways of working to speed up our daily work and meet the |
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requirements. |
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|
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This is why I think portage might be a good solution: in embedded |
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development we're really missing a build system which allows you to |
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pick up traditional open source packages and your own packages |
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maximizing code reuse among projects. I believe portage has the degree |
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of modularity required, and since it's open source is much easier to |
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learn and to maintain. |
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|
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> |
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>> I am wondering whether gentoo prefix could help me in the following: I |
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>> would like to use portage to cross compile some base linux packages |
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>> plus some board specific applications for a different number of boards |
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>> each requiring their own patches and packages, with a huge amount of |
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>> code to be shared among them. |
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> |
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> Basically yes, ... |
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> |
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>> I was lookong at crossdev but |
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> |
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> ... however I've not seen anyone trying to make crossdev working in Prefix. |
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> |
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> But I fail to see a reason for crossdev not to work in Prefix, even if |
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> I've not used crossdev myself. So IMO it just has To Be Done (tm). |
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|
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Well, I've tried to have crossdev itself working in prefix and I |
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succeeded, the big problem was to cross-build the glibc, then I didnt |
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have the time to finish but maybe I could use some help? |
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|
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> |
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>> the big problem is that I CAN'T get |
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>> administrative priviledges on the development machine, in fact each |
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>> user at the moment builds the packages in their own home. |
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> |
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> This is one of the reasons Gentoo Prefix was born. |
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> |
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>> To be more precise I wish I could use portage installed in my home |
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>> directory and have it use some cross-toolchain (either pre-built or |
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>> built through portage) to actually download, patch, configure, build |
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>> and install packages to some directory which will eventually be turned |
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>> into a target filesystem someway. |
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>> I've tried to use crossdev inside prefixed gentoo but failed to have |
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>> it working and I'm not sure it's the correct approach anyway. |
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> |
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> The special use case for Prefix here IMO is the combination of |
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> ROOT="/somewhere" with EPREFIX="" and non-Prefix profiles/keywords. |
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Yes, crossdev already uses the ROOT variable to specify the |
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installation path, I'm not yet very familiar with prefix related |
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variables so it might only be a matter of studying... |
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For instance what you mean exactly by "non-Prefix profiles/keywords"? |
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> |
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>> Have you guys any suggestion about my problem? That would save a lot |
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>> of users to keep developing new build systems and re-inventing the |
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>> wheel each time! Also they would never come to something as good and |
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>> featured as portage. |
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> |
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> For what I can say if I were in your situation: |
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> |
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> First, I'd try crossdev on some (virtualized) vanilla Gentoo Linux |
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> system, to see if crossdev /is/ the tool doing what I need, and to |
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> see how it works. |
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Yes, I'm already a crossdev user and I actually think it could be the |
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tool I am looking for, possibly with some tweaks. |
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> |
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> Then I'd try to fix crossdev to work within Gentoo Prefix, trying |
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> to get identical output as on the vanilla Gentoo Linux system. |
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That's the difficult part :) |
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> |
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> But I also would expect lots of work, resulting in patches for crossdev, |
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> ebuilds/eclasses, as well as (prefix-)portage. |
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That's what I am NOT familiar with, I am an experienced portage user |
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but not (yet) a good portage developer. |
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Maybe I could use a little help with this? Do you guys find this kind |
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of development useful/challenging? In which case, have you got a rough |
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idea about the effort in making a working prototype (your guess would |
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be much better then mine)? |
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|
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Oh, one last thing: one of the big issues is about host machines... it |
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would be nice if the prefixed Gentoo could be portable across |
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different development machines / users. Do you think it's possible to |
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have a prefixed gentoo "relocatable"? I mean, I setup my prefixed |
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system, then i "tar cvj" the entire system then untar for a different |
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user / different machine, "change some config files / environment |
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variables" and have my prefixed system work without bootstrapping |
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again? |
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|
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Thank you very much for your time and help, |
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Regards, |
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|
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Piergiorgio |
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|
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> |
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> HTH, |
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> /haubi/ |
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> -- |
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> Michael Haubenwallner |
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> Gentoo on a different level |
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> |
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> |