[yocto] should users be able to run yocto's pre-built images standalone?

[Rudolf Streif]

Hi Robert,



> a basic question -- is it supported that users be able to download and
> run yocto's pre-built QEMU images without having to download an entire
> build system, and set up bitbake, etc?  theoretically, of course, it
> can be done, but it's not set up to do it conveniently (if it even
> should be).
>

IMHO that is exactly what the ADT installer does. OK, it could use some
enhancements but it lets you specify what pre-built images you would like
to use and sets it up, including QEMU and the related scripts.


>
>   first, one can't get yocto's qemu-related utilities without
> downloading either oe-core or a toolchain.  is that really necessary?
> how hard would it be to break out the QEMU stuff into a much smaller
> tarball if that's all people want?
>

I think you want at least QEMU, the scripts, the user-space NFS server and
the cross-toolchain. Quite frankly, what do you really do with just QEMU,
scripts and images? Either you want to build your own images then you need
Poky (the build system) or you want to do user-space development then you
need images and a cross-toolchain. Just booting an image into QEMU seems
quite boring to me.

>
>   and if that's done, certainly, the help messages from runqemu can be
> updated, since those utilities clearly assume they're running as part
> of a build infrastructure when that's not necessary.
>
> Fair enough, but if you could provide more details outlining what the
error message said, what the root cause of the problem was, and what you
think the error message should say, it would really help the developers to
make the improvements. Unless you are inclined to rummage through the code,
fix it and submit patches.

runqemu uses bitbake to determine the environment and infer the paths to
kernels and root fs images when using the short version of invoking it.
That is actually what the message says that you have on your webpage:

"In order for this script to dynamically infer paths to kernels or
filesystem images, you either need bitbake in your PATH or to source
oe-init-build-env before running this script"

However, you can directly invoke runqemu with paths to kernel and root fs
images:

$ runqemu /path/to/kernelimage /path/to/rootfsimage

and the paths can of course be absolute and relative. That is what ADT
does. ADT does not have bitbake included.


>   anyway, you can see the observations i made on my QEMU page.  it
> seems that, if you just want people to be able to *easily* fire up
> some pre-built images to see the beauty of yocto, you shouldn't make
> them download an entire build infrastructure they don't need.
>
> I looked at your page and, no offense, it seems more complicated to me
than it ought to be. Just use the ADT installer, provide your settings in
the adt-installer.conf file, and take it from there.


Cheers,
Rudi
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