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

[Christopher Larson]

On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 5:04 AM, Paul Eggleton <
paul.eggleton at linux.intel.com> wrote:

> 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.


A good first step for both may be to add more typing information to the
metadata, so the UI can present something more intelligent than a bunch of
text boxes for text input. I expect that would be useful for any
configuration UI, whether toaster or console.

I’d certainly find a curses / menuconfig style interface to be interesting,
I’m sure there are folks who would find it useful, as long as it’s done
well.

My question would be, how does the UI determine what variables to present?
Do we hardcode the list of variables they might want to edit, or provide
that information in the metadata in some fashion?
-- 
Christopher Larson
clarson at kergoth dot com
Founder - BitBake, OpenEmbedded, OpenZaurus
Maintainer - Tslib
Senior Software Engineer, Mentor Graphics
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openembedded.org/pipermail/openembedded-core/attachments/20150518/f0372827/attachment-0002.html>