[Automated-testing] Looking for a Debian kernel provisioning solution

[Steve McIntyre]

On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 11:23:49AM +0000, Richard Purdie wrote:
>On Thu, 2018-01-25 at 07:46 +0100, Robert Schwebel wrote:
>> We use the Minnowboard Max for realtime testing with labgrid, and for
>> the automatic setup we use an SD-USB-Mux:
>> 
>> https://www.pengutronix.de/en/2017-10-23-usb-sd-mux-automated-sd-card
>> -juggler.html
>> 
>> In fact, we still don't have a proper way of selling them, but if you
>> send me your address, you'll probably be added to our beta tester
>> program :-)
>
>It is great to see those exist, I've talked about the concept with
>various people for years!
>
>I've not posted much here recently as I'm lacking time to do something
>about it but my own belief is that the automated testing side of Linux
>is mostly hampered by the lack of the above such devices.
>
>If we could get those to a point where they're orderable online "off
>the shelf" from one of the small computer interface companies, I think
>the software would then mature to the point we could easily automate
>larger scale projects.

It would be really good to see a nice, reliable, off-the-shelf SD-mux
product, yes. Over the years in Linaro we've tried to design and make
our own, but that didn't work very well. We've evaluated a few others
that we found on the web, but they tended to be awful in various ways:
fragile (some didn't even survive shipping), unreliable or just not
functional at all. We've *mostly* moved away from testing devices
which SD-boot recently, so it's not hurt us too much.

However, a reliable way to safely replace the boot image on devices
like this would great to have.

Cheers,
-- 
Steve McIntyre                                steve.mcintyre at linaro.org
<http://www.linaro.org/> Linaro.org | Open source software for ARM SoCs