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

[Tim.Bird at sony.com]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Milosz Wasilewski on Tuesday, February 13, 2018 9:12 AM
> 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/attac
> hments/slides/2149/export/events/attachments/remote_embedded_testin
> g/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.

This looks like a really interesting and useful multi-purpose control board.
Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

Can you please add information about this (and a link to the presentation)
on https://elinux.org/Board_Farm (in the Hardware/Multi-function section)?

Looks like we'll hear some about this at ELC - Pawel has a talk scheduled there
which sounds related.

Thanks,
 -- Tim