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

[Milosz Wasilewski]

On 13 February 2018 at 16:59, Steve McIntyre <steve.mcintyre at linaro.org> wrote:
> 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.

I'm not sure if it was mentioned here, but there was a talk at last
FOSDEM about MuxPi from Tizen (https://wiki.tizen.org/MuxPi). I can't
confirm it with local board, but it sounds promising. Presentation can
be found here: https://fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/remote_embedded_testing/attachments/slides/2149/export/events/attachments/remote_embedded_testing/slides/2149/Piece_of_cake.pdf
It's not off the shelf though. Tizen only provides with PCB design. If
that works I guess it can be handed to some Seedstudio and made
available for purchase.

Best Regards,
milosz