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

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 11 Dec 2012, Rudolf Streif wrote:

> 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.  

  ok, i haven't poked around there yet, i'll look at that later.

>         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. 

  good point ... i originally envisioned someone perhaps wanting to do
nothing more than just downloading and running the pre-built images to
see what all the fuss was about.  if that's really not considered a
useful example, i'll forget about it.

>         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.

  ah, that i can provide.  in the runqemu usage message, you see the
suggestion:

 $MYNAME qemux86-64 core-image-sato ext3"

but that assumes you're in a build directory.  of course, using the
adt-installer as you suggested might make all this moot.

rday

-- 

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Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
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