This is a good idea - thanks Prateek. I’ve added this to the notes. We do have quite a lot of common errors documented on https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Building#Known_errors, but there are other aspects to consider as well.
Chris Mills Senior tech writer || Mozilla developer.mozilla.org || MDN [email protected] || @chrisdavidmills On 30 Jun 2014, at 16:33, Prateek Jadhwani <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Chris, > > I was wondering if we could get an Error Documentation as well, where we have > the list of known errors, the way to reproduce them and the way to solve them > along with some explanation about what stuff is creating problems. This would > give the developers more information about their project/stories and easy to > debug guidelines. > > Prateek Jadhwani > www.prateekjadhwani.com > > > On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 11:25 AM, Chris Mills <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks a lot for taking the time to do this, Dave. I’ve got a few followups > below. > > After that, I’ll start working out a plan for discovering who best to ask > about these subjects, and how best to approach the team for contributing. I > know you are all super busy, and I don’t want to start randomly bugging > people. > > > > On 26 Jun 2014, at 20:42, Dave Hylands <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hi Chris, > > > > Comments interspersed below. > > > > From: "Chris Mills" <[email protected]> > > To: [email protected] > > Cc: "Ali Spivak" <[email protected]> > > Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2014 5:37:42 AM > > Subject: [b2g] I need your help: Developing Firefox OS documentation > > > > Hi all, > > > > Now I've got the Developing Gaia documentation[1] up to scratch, it is now > > time to turn my attention to Developing Firefox OS's lower level platform > > areas. > > > > And I need your help to begin with, as I don't really know that much about > > build systems, etc. The current Developing Firefox OS page[2] is now quite > > sparse, now I've moved all the Gaia-specific stuff to a dedicated page. > > > > The question is really: How can a contributor actually contribute to > > Firefox OS, the non-Gaia parts, usefully? > > > > On my list I've got: > > > > * Gecko - this is pretty much the same as regular Firefox OS Gecko dev, but > > can someone comment on this, and help me outline what is different? What > > should I say here? Should we call out API writing/contributions > > specifically? > > Most of the things in gecko that are gonk specific either use #ifdef > > MOZ_WIDGET_GONK or are in a gonk subdirectory. > > > > 2202 >find gecko/ -name gonk > > gecko/hal/gonk > > gecko/widget/gonk > > gecko/dom/mobilemessage/src/gonk > > gecko/dom/telephony/gonk > > gecko/dom/system/gonk > > gecko/dom/wappush/src/gonk > > gecko/uriloader/exthandler/gonk > > This is good to start with. Maybe for this I just need a page saying where > the Gonk code lives, what skills are needed, how to find bugs to work on? > > > > > * Gonk - we currently have very little information on Gonk. What should I > > say about this? How can externals contribute? > > gonk itself is really just a stripped down version of android. We try not > > to change gonk itself since most of the source code isn't under our control > > anyways. > > ok, this is good to know. > > > > > The device specific stuff we normally get from the vendors we deal with. > > * Porting Firefox OS to other devices - I'm sure it would be useful to give > > people some guidance on this, but what information should we provide? > > It really varies depending on the device, and how much customization the > > vendor has done to the android sources. > > This page covers some high level stuff: > > https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Porting although I suspect its out of date. > > Not having ported anything yet, I'm not sure of everything that's involved. > > ok, probably still worth investigating. > > > * Knowing your way around the B2G build system - it would be great to > > provide a really detailed view of how it works, what it does at each stage, > > etc. So that developers can help with it, and fix building problems as they > > arise (there's been a lot of traffic on the mailing list about this kind of > > thing recently.) > > The B2G build system is really just the android build system. > > > > gonk/misc/Android.mk is where we have a target called gecko, which in turn > > calls make to build gecko. > > There is also a target called profile.tar.gz defined in gaia/Android.mk > > > > Everything inside gecko then gets built using normal gecko procedures > > Everything inside gaia gets built using Android.mk and/or Makefile > > > > The rest is pretty much built using android build. > > We’ve got a fair bit of this already, in different places, but I’m sure we > could organize them better, and provide a more detailed description of what > happens, how it differs form Android build, how it’s the same, etc. > > It would be great to be able to answer all these mails we get on dev-b2g > saying things like “this sucks: I tried to build for the Open C and bricked > my phone. Your instructions weren’t good enough. > > > * What other B2G customizations can be done that are useful to talk about? > > What kinds of customizations? I suspect that there are many ways of > > customizing things, from prefs, to adding native code, and/or adding > > default apps. > > > > > I really don’t know what else. Whatever else we think might be worth telling > the community about. Whatever might be productive for them to help with. > > > I have started a google doc at > > > > https://docs.google.com/a/mozilla.com/document/d/1Wn-nQSHCxJnudyA0XgkVORpCGGBMUW6fOosxEXMkZ8Y/edit# > > > > Where I have started to collect useful notes. Please feel free to leave > > comments here, or reply to this mail. > > > > I'd really love some team members who are experienced in these areas to > > give me some help on putting together some truly useful docs. > > > > Thanks for listening, > > > > Chris Mills > > Senior tech writer || Mozilla > > developer.mozilla.org || MDN > > [email protected] || @chrisdavidmills > > > > [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Developing_Gaia > > [2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Developing_Firefox_OS > > > > _______________________________________________ > > dev-b2g mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-b2g > > _______________________________________________ > dev-b2g mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-b2g > _______________________________________________ dev-b2g mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-b2g
