[yocto] Understanding "Package groups"

[Rudolf Streif]

Hi Stefan,

You probably have found the explanation on package groups in the reference
manual [1].

Package groups are recipes with the sole purpose to create dependencies to
simplify image creation. A package group recipe bundles multiple packages
together and then instead of having to explicitly specify each package in
the IMAGE_INSTALL variable you can simply specify the package group name.

Package group recipes look like this (from the manual):

DESCRIPTION = "My Custom Package Groups"

     inherit packagegroup

     PACKAGES = "\
         packagegroup-custom-apps \
         packagegroup-custom-tools \
         "

     RDEPENDS_packagegroup-custom-apps = "\
         dropbear \
         portmap \
         psplash"

     RDEPENDS_packagegroup-custom-tools = "\
         oprofile \
         oprofileui-server \
         lttng-control \
         lttng-viewer"

     RRECOMMENDS_packagegroup-custom-tools = "\
         kernel-module-oprofile"



Like any recipe they have a description. They inherit the
packagegroup.bbclass. A package group recipe can define multiple package
groups in the PACKAGES variable. For each package group listed in PACKAGES
you will then need to specify the packages that actually go into them with
conditional RDEPENDS_<packagegroupname> variables.

Package groups are only relevant for the YP build system. They do not
create package grouping for the package manager that you are using for your
target. However, if you select a package group from HOB then all of the
packages specified in that group should be installed in your target's
rootfs by YP.

Rudi



[1]
http://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/1.6/dev-manual/dev-manual.html#usingpoky-extend-customimage-customtasks


On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 10:05 AM, Stefan Hofmann <stefan.hofmann at mobserve.de>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I made my first steps with yocto and everything worked fine so far. But
> now I am struggling with "package groups". What I basically want, is a
> image for a base system, which allows me to install additional packages
> over the air with opkg. In my imagination package groups are something like
> preselected packages, which need to be installed at once similar like it is
> handled in Debian for X11-support for example. Is this right ? I have built
> core-image-base for testing purposes and tried to figure out the
> dependencies by using the Hob tool. It says that bash will be installed and
> the group "base/shell" is responsible for that. However it is not
> installed, only ash and I cannot find a package group
> "package-group-base-shell" in the receipes. It does however exist in the
> work directory. So now I am somewhat confused.
>
> Regards,
> Stefan
>
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>
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>
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