Hi Paul,

> On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 04:38:34PM +0100, Gabor Juhos wrote:
>> 2013.01.07. 16:59 keltezéssel, Paul Fertser írta:
>>> These targets need custom image names specified in the uImage header.
>>> MkImage accepts an optional 4th argument to do exactly that. Reuse the
>>> facility to generate proper sysupgrade images suitable also for
>>> upgrading the factory firmware.
>>
>> Applied with some changes.
> 
> As far as i understand, the way you did it will produce both
> factory.bin files (suitable for the sysupgrade utility and the
> vendor's interface) and sysupgrade.bin (that would work only with the
> sysupgrade utility). Isn't that adding an unnecessary complexity and
> causing more confusion for the users and developers?

I agree that this adds some complexity. However both the sysupgrade and factory
images were provided for these boards, and if one of them disappear users will
complain about that.

> OTOH, when the vendor tools require some uncommon format it's
> meaningless to try to support it with "sysupgrade" so it makes sense
> to generate two different images.
> 
> Shouldn't there be established a policy regarding that? As a user i
> would prefer to have a single image (without "sysupgrade" or "factory"
> in its name) whenever possible to have only one binary for both
> usecases.

And what should we tell to the users?

- On board A from vendor B use the image without any suffix, but be aware that
it is only working with the sysupgrade command from OpenWrt."

- On board C from vendor D, feel free to use the image without any suffix, and
that will work with the original web interface and with OpenWrt as well.

- On board E from vendor F, the image with the -factory prefix must be used from
the factory web interface, and the -sysupgrade image must be used to upgrade an
existing OpenWrt installation.

Additionally, the fact that the factory images can be used for sysupgrade on
some boards does not mean that this will be true always. Of course, the factory
format won't change but we might want to use a generic format for sysupgrade on
all boards later. There were plans for that.

> Alternatively, i'd require every target to generate both -factory and
> -sysupgrade images

This won't happen until someone does not investigate the format of the factory
images and write a tool for them for the boards where we are not providing
factory images yet.

> but if they can be identical, they should be (cp will be enough).

> More consistency in naming is needed, imho, so i propose to decide on
> that.

More consistency? The -factory images must be used to flash OpenWrt from the
original web interface, and the -sysupgrade images must be used to upgrade an
existing OpenWrt installation. This is quite consistent IMO.

-Gabor
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