Hi all,

I've been thinking about the issue of documenting Poky's dependencies in
the handbook.
At the moment the handbook includes a list of required packages and then
explicitly lists commands to install those packages on Ubuntu.

What I'd like to propose is that we list the required dependencies in
the handbook and then link to a wiki page where we can list explicit
instructions for various distributions.

This allows us to document the process for as many distributions as
possible without cluttering the handbook. An alternative would be to add
this to an appendix but I quite like the idea of people being able to
edit and add to this information without having to use git.

To that end I've added a page to our public wiki showing the steps I had
to take to run Poky on Fedora and CentOS machines:

https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/Poky/GettingStarted/Dependencies

Cheers,
Joshua
--
Joshua Lock
Intel Open Source Technology Centre

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Thanks for doing this!

Some ScottR ARs below.

From: yocto-bounces@... [mailto:yocto-
bounces@...] On Behalf Of Joshua Lock
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2010 4:36 AM

Hi all,

I've been thinking about the issue of documenting Poky's dependencies in
the handbook.
At the moment the handbook includes a list of required packages and then
explicitly lists commands to install those packages on Ubuntu.

What I'd like to propose is that we list the required dependencies in
the handbook and then link to a wiki page where we can list explicit
instructions for various distributions.

This allows us to document the process for as many distributions as
possible without cluttering the handbook. An alternative would be to add
this to an appendix but I quite like the idea of people being able to
edit and add to this information without having to use git.

To that end I've added a page to our public wiki showing the steps I had
to take to run Poky on Fedora and CentOS machines:

https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/Poky/GettingStarted/Dependencies

Good idea. Some suggestions:

1. There seem to be no links to this page from the rest of the wiki. Should add one. Scott - can you please figure out the best place?

2. Can you add something specific to the version of Poky (or Yocto) which has been verified with these distros? For example, f13 and f14 have instructions for Laverne; they might change for a future rev. What is the best way to show this?

Cheers,
Joshua
--
Joshua Lock
Intel Open Source Technology Centre

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Registered No. 1134945 (England)
Registered Office: Pipers Way, Swindon SN3 1RJ
VAT No: 860 2173 47

This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential material for
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On Thu, 2010-11-18 at 12:54 -0800, Stewart, David C wrote:

Thanks for doing this!

Some ScottR ARs below.

From: yocto-bounces@... [mailto:yocto-
bounces@...] On Behalf Of Joshua Lock
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2010 4:36 AM

Hi all,

I've been thinking about the issue of documenting Poky's dependencies in
the handbook.
At the moment the handbook includes a list of required packages and then
explicitly lists commands to install those packages on Ubuntu.

What I'd like to propose is that we list the required dependencies in
the handbook and then link to a wiki page where we can list explicit
instructions for various distributions.

This allows us to document the process for as many distributions as
possible without cluttering the handbook. An alternative would be to add
this to an appendix but I quite like the idea of people being able to
edit and add to this information without having to use git.

To that end I've added a page to our public wiki showing the steps I had
to take to run Poky on Fedora and CentOS machines:

https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/Poky/GettingStarted/Dependencies

Good idea. Some suggestions:

1. There seem to be no links to this page from the rest of the wiki.
Should add one. Scott - can you please figure out the best place?

Yeah, I wanted to make sure everyone was OK with the idea before I made
it too visible.

2. Can you add something specific to the version of Poky (or Yocto)
which has been verified with these distros? For example, f13 and f14
have instructions for Laverne; they might change for a future rev. What
is the best way to show this?

Not sure on the best way to show this, but this was Poky master (so
Laverne-ish) that I've tested.

I will verify that the steps work equally well for vanilla Laverne.

Cheers,
Joshua
--
Joshua Lock
Intel Open Source Technology Centre

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Intel Corporation (UK) Limited
Registered No. 1134945 (England)
Registered Office: Pipers Way, Swindon SN3 1RJ
VAT No: 860 2173 47

This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential material for
the sole use of the intended recipient(s). Any review or distribution
by others is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended
recipient, please contact the sender and delete all copies.

On 11/19/2010 04:38 AM, Joshua Lock wrote:

On Thu, 2010-11-18 at 12:54 -0800, Stewart, David C wrote:

Thanks for doing this!

Some ScottR ARs below.

From: yocto-bounces@... [mailto:yocto-
bounces@...] On Behalf Of Joshua Lock
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2010 4:36 AM

Hi all,

I've been thinking about the issue of documenting Poky's dependencies in
the handbook.
At the moment the handbook includes a list of required packages and then
explicitly lists commands to install those packages on Ubuntu.

What I'd like to propose is that we list the required dependencies in
the handbook and then link to a wiki page where we can list explicit
instructions for various distributions.

This allows us to document the process for as many distributions as
possible without cluttering the handbook. An alternative would be to add
this to an appendix but I quite like the idea of people being able to
edit and add to this information without having to use git.

That makes sense, although keeping current Ubuntu and Fedora doesn't take much space and saves some large percentage (90%?) of our userbase from having to follow one-more-link to get the required steps.

I'd also like to see the sanity checker do a better job at listing package names rather than command names in a format that can be copy and pasted into an aptitude or yum install command. If done right, this would basically eliminate the need for any explicit list in the documentation.

--
Darren Hart
Yocto Linux Kernel

I have a couple of things to say on this topic.

First, swabber is intended to generate a list of packages that were used in build. So by profiling a build, you should know what packages you used from the host, and what built native/target packages required them. You may consider using that as input to whatever user-oriented document that is being created.

Swabber currently generates such a list that can easily be fed into an automated host package checking tool (which we have as part of Wind River Linux).

Swabber lets you create white and black lists, as well as file filters. This helps you highlight dangerous packages, and not bother listing the obvious requires (eg. glibc). The lists are per-distribution and generic.

Also, host package dependencies should ultimately be per-package. For instance, you could require everyone to require all the tools needed to build all of X, but it'd be better that you'd only need to install those packages if you were actually building X. That would mean adding meta data to the existing recipes that would say what host packages are required.

There are other issues with how to support different distributions. This can be difficult because of package naming and matching files to packages. I have some ideas on how to do this, but it is still a bit early.

- Alex