+++ Paul Jimenez [04-04-08 11:43 -0500]: > > One more idea for the mix (perhaps more as inspiration than > actual use, since it's fairly specialized to one platform): the > 'vrdeb' system that the Agenda VR3 (a linux PDA) uses. (details at > http://agendawiki.com/cgi-bin/aw.pl?VrdebHome) > > It's a patch-the-debian-distro method which leverages existing debian/ > files, but adds a 'romfiles' file to the debian dir that lists which > files from the 'make install' output should be installed to the rom image.
That' more-or-less how emdebsys works (ignoring the separate dependency tree it also maintains) - for each package you specify the files you actually want in the final image. > The entire output of 'make install' is installed to the dev enviroment > (where space is presumably not a problem) allowing libs and docs and such > to exist where they'll be useful without taking up space on the actual > embedded image. OK. This scheme works well when you are building a fixed filesystem image, but maybe not so well if you are trying to build smaller packages? I do like it though. It's simple and it's almost exactly what you want quite a lot of the time. We could certainly very easily generate 'romfiles' files for a pile of packages specifying the bits you actually need - this would move a lot of such knowledgeout of the big emdebsys list into each package, which is obviously where it should live. Can we think of a better name than 'romfiles'? This scheme is probably compatible with fancier schemes to modify the build rules too - you can use one or the other according to your needs (highly emdebbed image vs. upgradeable packagified system). > This seems like the best compromise to me - power of debian, but extended > a bit. Perhaps someday even standardized into the main debian distro. > Which is also, I think, a worth long-term goal for emdebian to have. That is certainly the goal. Any scheme we think up has to be 'saleable' to the rest of Debian in the medium-long term. We're probably getting to the stage where we need to float some of these ideas on debian-devel and see what other good ideas/problems are broughtup. That needs a summary paper of the thinking so far though (which we're working on). Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/
