[U-Boot] Buildman cookbook

[Simon Glass]

Hi Wolfgang,

On 27 October 2014 03:04, Wolfgang Denk <wd at denx.de> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> it would be nice if we could add a buildman cookbok with hints how to
> get started quickly with the most frequent use cases (or add some
> quickstart section to the README).

There is a workflow section, setting up and 'how to run it'. At
present it requires toolchain setup which is I think the main
obstacle.

>
> Things that I would like to have better documented include:
>
> - dependencies on external tools:
>
>         -> tools/buildman/buildman --list-tool-chains
>         Traceback (most recent call last):
>           File "tools/buildman/buildman", line 10, in <module>
>             import multiprocessing
>         ImportError: No module named multiprocessing
>
>   It would be nice if we could list such dependencies.

What version / distribution of Python are you using? We could
certainly add a list, but for me everything is already installed :-(

>
>   Actually we should probably provide such dependencies for U-Boot in
>   general - other tools have similar issues, like:
>
>         -> tools/genboardscfg.py
>         Traceback (most recent call last):
>           File "tools/genboardscfg.py", line 19, in <module>
>             import fnmatch
>         ImportError: No module named fnmatch
>
> - It would be nice if we could include a sample ".buildman" file,
>   and add documentation what the sections ("[toolchain]",
>   "[toolchain-alias]") and entries ("root", "rest", "eldk", "arm",
>   "aarch64") actually mena, which other options exist, and how the
>   tool selects a specific tool chain from this list if multiple
>   options are present.

I think we can expand that section.

>
> - I work a lot with local branches, and regularly run into this:
>
>   -> tools/buildman/buildman -n -b tq-generic-board
>   No section: 'make-flags'
>   Branch 'tq-generic-board' not found or has no upstream
>
>   Can we not avoid this?  Or add a default to "master"?

I think we might be able to have a default. How did you create the
local branch? I normally use:

git checkout -b my-branch upstream/master

and it does the right thing.

>
>   The README recommends to use "git branch --set-upstream ...", but
>   actually I don't want to do that - it is simply not needed.
>   Furthermore, git complains;
>
>   -> git branch --set-upstream tq-generic-board master
>   The --set-upstream flag is deprecated and will be removed. Consider using --track or --set-upstream-to
>   Branch tq-generic-board set up to track local branch master.

Yes I notice that in recent versions. We probably need another round
of tweaks although I mostly have my hands full for a few weeks.

Regards,
Simon