Official proposal for stakeholder process for the following idea. Anyone can contribute.
Summary ----------
Amit Kucheria has suggested we create a script called linaro-testdrive to ease the knowledge required to download images and create bootable media.
In his opinion as we continuously add support for more platforms and even more boards, it will become untenable to maintain the wiki pages describing. Something similar to 'testdrive' for Ubuntu is required for the next cycle.
This script should ask some basic questions and just do the right thing. This should be a separate script from linaro-media-create.
Questions would be: - What SoC? - What board? - What release (milestone)? - Image type (headless, alip, qemu, etc.)
Each of these would be a multiple choice question. This should get rid of the several levels of indirection required just to download all the right components before trying to prepare an image.
The should be easily data driven. A data file could contain all of the information required for the questions above. And with the right packaging, upgrades to linaro-testdrive will continually add support for new platforms and boards.
StakeHolders --------------- Amit Kucheria amit.kucheria@linaro.org Scott Bambrough scott.bambrough@linaro.org
Deadline: ASAP
Time estimate: Likely two-three weeks in all.
On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 11:07:27AM -0400, Scott Bambrough wrote:
This script should ask some basic questions and just do the right thing. This should be a separate script from linaro-media-create.
Questions would be:
- What SoC?
- What board?
- What release (milestone)?
- Image type (headless, alip, qemu, etc.)
Doesn't the "what board" question already answer the "what SoC" one?
I'm not sure this problem is actually that big. I mean, I expect as a community developer I'm either interested in the latest release, the latest development milestone, or a nightly, and those are just 3 links to directories -- you there choose the image type, and pull in the right hardware pack.
Can someone outline the problem scenario better? Otherwise, I think this is something to consider for a future where there are actually that many different images to worry about.
On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 3:10 AM, Christian Robottom Reis kiko@linaro.org wrote:
On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 11:07:27AM -0400, Scott Bambrough wrote:
This script should ask some basic questions and just do the right thing. This should be a separate script from linaro-media-create.
Questions would be: - What SoC? - What board? - What release (milestone)? - Image type (headless, alip, qemu, etc.)
Doesn't the "what board" question already answer the "what SoC" one?
It does.
I'm not sure this problem is actually that big. I mean, I expect as a community developer I'm either interested in the latest release, the latest development milestone, or a nightly, and those are just 3 links to directories -- you there choose the image type, and pull in the right hardware pack.
The problem, IMO, is that these are scattered all over the place and there are too many variations as we add new support. So the documentation will always be out of date.
Here is an example:
I find out that snapshots.linaro.org provides dailies. But I want to test the official beta. Where are the milestone releases? Ok, lets go to wiki.linaro.org, click on Developer, scroll down to the bottom, click on Beta milestone, find nothing there, come back, click on Releases/1011/Beta Scenario 1: only Beagleboard and Versatile express images listed there. Hmm, i thought we supported IGEPv2 as well. Abort. (Obviously, I don't read the NEWS section) Scenario 2: I want to test my i.MX51 Babbage board, doesn't seem to be supported easily. Abort (I read NEWS, but have no clue how to modify the image) Scenario 3: I want to test my beagleboard. Takes me to a completely different website (releases.linaro.org)
Can someone outline the problem scenario better? Otherwise, I think this is something to consider for a future where there are actually that many different images to worry about.
I think we're already there and it'll only get worse. This is not too different from my concerns about Ubuntu live-cd images done for ARM. It takes too much time and effort just to get the board booting with these images. Why make all developers navigate the wiki maze when a single page tell can tell them - Install linaro-testdrive and follow the directions.
Sorry for the long-winded reply.
Regards, Amit
On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 09:42:27AM +0300, Amit Kucheria wrote:
On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 3:10 AM, Christian Robottom Reis kiko@linaro.org wrote:
On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 11:07:27AM -0400, Scott Bambrough wrote:
This script should ask some basic questions and just do the right thing. This should be a separate script from linaro-media-create.
I'm not sure this problem is actually that big. I mean, I expect as a community developer I'm either interested in the latest release, the latest development milestone, or a nightly, and those are just 3 links to directories -- you there choose the image type, and pull in the right hardware pack.
The problem, IMO, is that these are scattered all over the place and there are too many variations as we add new support. So the documentation will always be out of date.
[snip]
You make some good points and if we are failing at documenting the procedure to actually install our images then thats bad and should be fixed ASAP. There are a couple of problems here:
* We are adding support for more hardware and failing to keep up with documentation. * Some hardware may need special tweaks or installation instructions, this knowledge is usually with the engineer(s) who are enabling the board. It would be better if they contributed to the wiki pages as well outlining any extra steps needed, special test cases e.t.c. * Some boards are partially supported. You gave an example of iMX. This is a good example of a board that was requested to be supported, has pending changes in the media-create script and no one responsible for iMX has stepped up to document the test-cases or installation instructions yet. * You mentioned VExpress and OMAP as the only supported platforms really documented at the moment. That was our goal at the start of the cycle, to enable these two platforms. The fact that other platforms are starting to come online is great but again, the documentation is lagging behind.
As a stop-gap I will go through the wiki pages today that deal with board support and installation. I'll produce a top-level page which will link off to the various platform specific instructions and documentation so at least we will have one link to navigate from.
The discussion about whether we need a wrapper tool, which will need to be update for each board (very much like the wiki I suppose), is another topic.
Regards, Amit
Regards, Jamie.
On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 09:42:27AM +0300, Amit Kucheria wrote:
The problem, IMO, is that these are scattered all over the place and there are too many variations as we add new support. So the documentation will always be out of date.
Here is an example:
I find out that snapshots.linaro.org provides dailies. But I want to test the official beta. Where are the milestone releases? Ok, lets go to wiki.linaro.org, click on Developer, scroll down to the bottom, click on Beta milestone, find nothing there, come back, click on Releases/1011/Beta Scenario 1: only Beagleboard and Versatile express images listed there. Hmm, i thought we supported IGEPv2 as well. Abort. (Obviously, I don't read the NEWS section) Scenario 2: I want to test my i.MX51 Babbage board, doesn't seem to be supported easily. Abort (I read NEWS, but have no clue how to modify the image) Scenario 3: I want to test my beagleboard. Takes me to a completely different website (releases.linaro.org)
The solution to the use cases you describe above should now be:
* Go to http://wiki.linaro.org * Click the Developers link * Read a couple of paragraphs, especially the "Obtaining and Testing Linaro Images" section. * Choose whether you want to test daily builds: * http://wiki.linaro.org/Releases/DailyBuilds * Milestone builds: * http://wiki.linaro.org/Releases/MilestoneBuilds * Or the official releases: * http://wiki.linaro.org/Releases/OfficalReleases
These pages show (in graphical format) how to obtain, install and test the images. There are links off to the various pages that make sense where appropriate. We could extend the pages by having explicit sections on exactly how to install on a particular platform, but these sections would grow as more and more platforms are supported. I don't have a problem with that but I would hope that linaro-media-create can handle board specifics so we don't have to document them.
Take a look. Is this any better? How can it be improved?
Regards, Amit
Regards, Jamie.
Hi,
On 09/30/2010 03:27 PM, Jamie Bennett wrote:
Take a look. Is this any better? How can it be improved?
I followed the new instructions for the daily snapshots, which is basically what I used to do plus the hw-pack stuff.
I'm running the stuff on a Maverick and do the following:
sudo /home/rber/daily-snapshots/linaro-image-tools/linaro-media-create --rootfs ext3 --mmc /dev/sde --dev beagle --binary linaro-m-headless-tar-20100930-0.tar.gz --hwpack hwpack_linaro-omap3_20100930-31_armel_supported.tar.gz
and I answer always y when asked.
There are some funny errors and warnings. Please have a look what's happening in more detail here:
I'll try again after installing apt-utils and upgrading to latest and greatest Maverick packages.
Regards,
Robert
Regards, Jamie.
...One test is worth a thousand opinions.-Jack Ganssle
My public pgp key is available at: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x90320BF1
On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 09:42:27AM +0300, Amit Kucheria wrote:
The problem, IMO, is that these are scattered all over the place and there are too many variations as we add new support. So the documentation will always be out of date.
Is it really that complicated? It sounds to me that one wikipage that links to three directories solves this problem. A commandline tool is cool, sure, but there are other much more pressing infrastructure issues we are facing (patch review tool for kernel patches anyone?)
I find out that snapshots.linaro.org provides dailies. But I want to test the official beta. Where are the milestone releases?
[...]
Ok, lets go to wiki.linaro.org, click on Developer, scroll down to the bottom, click on Beta milestone, find nothing there, come back, click on Releases/1011/Beta
I agree that the wiki doesn't help here.
It sounds like we should have a
/Download
page which clearly provides the three links:
Daily builds Milestones Releases
which explain images versus hardware packs and take you to the right directory.
-
Amit Kucheria -
Christian Robottom Reis -
Jamie Bennett -
Robert Berger -
Scott Bambrough