[OE-core] [RFC] Add something like bitbake -cmenuconfig <recipe> ?

[Paul Eggleton]

On Monday 18 May 2015 08:52:04 Otavio Salvador wrote:
> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 5:45 AM, Paul Eggleton
> 
> <paul.eggleton at linux.intel.com> wrote:
> > Hi Robert,
> > 
> > On Monday 18 May 2015 09:52:50 Robert Yang wrote:
> >> On 05/17/2015 05:34 AM, Richard Purdie wrote:
> >> > On Fri, 2015-05-15 at 10:35 +0800, Robert Yang wrote:
> >> >> Is is useful/possible if we add something like bitbake <recipe>
> >> >> -cmenuconfig, just like kernel's make menuconfig ?
> >> >> 
> >> >> We can use the menuconfig to config the vars such as MACHINE, DL_DIR,
> >> >> DISTRO_FEATURES, MACHINE_FEATURES and all the variables which are
> >> >> configurable, I think that this would help the newbie a lot.
> >> >> 
> >> >> I think that we can add a menuconfig.bbclass (or other names) to do
> >> >> this,
> >> >> and I'd like to work on it.
> >> > 
> >> > Why would you want to specify a <recipe> when configuring MACHINE? I
> >> > understand why you're thinking this but it isn't well thought out and
> >> > in
> >> > this form would confuse users more than help them.
> >> > 
> >> > I don't think the system will even parse without a valid MACHINE, let
> >> > alone execute tasks.
> >> 
> >> I meant that we need something to help configure the build easier, it
> >> can generate something like local.conf.append, not configure the recipe.
> >> 
> >> The example "bitbake <recipe> -cmenuconfig" wasn't right enough, it's
> >> just a rough thought, we can use the current default local.conf
> >> (MACHINE = qemux86) to make system parse.
> >> 
> >> The problem is that we have many bbclasses in oe-core, a lot of them
> >> has specify configurations, and also a lot of vars in the conf file such
> >> as bitbake.conf, it's not easy to know how and what to config,
> >> especially,
> >> for newbies. The "bitbake -cmenuconfig" maybe not a good idea, I think
> >> that
> >> we need something to help config the build (generate local.conf) easier,
> >> do you have any suggestions, please ?
> > 
> > This is likely the direction we will be going in with the Toaster web UI -
> > with a web-based tool we can present a much friendlier interface and have
> > the chance to link to other information, for example we can link to the
> > appropriate manual section for individual variables (and in future error
> > messages, classes, etc.), analyse the output of the build, manage
> > multiple sets of configuration, etc. These are things that would be
> > difficult to do practically from the command line.
> 
> Toaster is nice but we shouldn't stop improving cmdline use as the
> first won't work for some use-cases.

Sure, I'm pointing out that this kind of thing is being worked on in a 
slightly different context, it's not that nothing is being done in this area.

Cheers,
Paul

-- 

Paul Eggleton
Intel Open Source Technology Centre