Re: [PATCH v2 0/5] Support multiple image types in one build

[Henning Schild <henning.schild@siemens.com>]

In fact having exactly one image type and using multiconfig is already
very powerful. We have layers where we have custom image classes which
include existing ones and are set as the "main type". That is super
flexible already.

I am not a fan of mc, but here we have a proposal that seems to want to
defeat mc and is lacking a clear motivation. At least i do not fully
understand why that change makes sense. The main point could be OE
alignment which might be good enough but not really too important.

A simple array list is much less flexible. Imagine you want to have a
wic-img and an ext4 and your rootfs contains "expand-on-first-boot",
meaning wic will grow once on device ... while ext4 might need another
ROOTFS_EXTRA/_SIZE. In fact one will likely even have different
packages installed depending on the type. While packing the same rootfs
into multiple images will work it is much nicer to adapt the content to
the type. i.e. a container might need less of an init
system/kernel/initrd or filesystem support, a wic will maybe need
bootloader bits, and an ext4 will not need expand-on-first-boot (like
container as well)

Henning


Am Tue, 28 Sep 2021 09:13:47 +0200
schrieb Uladzimir Bely <ubely@ilbers.de>:

> Changes since v1:
> - removed mc:qemuamd64-buster-cpiogz config
> - mc:qemuamd64-buster config now includes cpiogz image type
> 
> The patchset makes possible to build several image types for
> the specific target by listing all them in IMG_FSTYPES variable.
> 
> This also deprecates using IMG_TYPE variable.
> 
> Uladzimir Bely (5):
>   image: Make WORKDIR and STAMPs unrelated to IMAGE_TYPE
>   wic-img: Set weak default value for WKS_FILE
>   start_vm: Use the first image type to start VM
>   meta-isar: Rework mc:qemuamd64-buster configs
>   api: Rename IMAGE_TYPE to IMAGE_FSTYPES
> 
>  RECIPE-API-CHANGELOG.md                       |  5 ++++
>  doc/user_manual.md                            | 23
> +++++++++++-------- meta-isar/conf/local.conf.sample              |
> 2 -- meta-isar/conf/machine/bananapi.conf          |  2 +-
>  meta-isar/conf/machine/container-amd64.conf   |  2 +-
>  meta-isar/conf/machine/de0-nano-soc.conf      |  2 +-
>  meta-isar/conf/machine/hikey.conf             |  2 +-
>  meta-isar/conf/machine/nand-ubi-demo.conf     |  2 +-
>  meta-isar/conf/machine/nanopi-neo.conf        |  2 +-
>  meta-isar/conf/machine/qemuamd64.conf         |  2 +-
>  meta-isar/conf/machine/qemuarm.conf           |  2 +-
>  meta-isar/conf/machine/qemuarm64.conf         |  2 +-
>  meta-isar/conf/machine/qemui386.conf          |  2 +-
>  meta-isar/conf/machine/qemumipsel.conf        |  2 +-
>  meta-isar/conf/machine/qemuriscv64.conf       |  2 +-
>  meta-isar/conf/machine/rpi.conf               |  2 +-
>  meta-isar/conf/machine/sifive-fu540.conf      |  2 +-
>  meta-isar/conf/machine/stm32mp15x.conf        |  2 +-
>  .../multiconfig/qemuamd64-buster-cpiogz.conf  |  9 --------
>  .../multiconfig/qemuamd64-buster-tgz.conf     |  9 --------
>  .../conf/multiconfig/qemuamd64-buster.conf    |  2 ++
>  meta/classes/image.bbclass                    | 12 ++++++----
>  meta/classes/wic-img.bbclass                  |  3 +++
>  scripts/ci_build.sh                           |  5 ++--
>  scripts/start_vm                              |  8 ++++---
>  testsuite/start_vm.py                         |  2 +-
>  26 files changed, 54 insertions(+), 56 deletions(-)
>  delete mode 100644
> meta-isar/conf/multiconfig/qemuamd64-buster-cpiogz.conf delete mode
> 100644 meta-isar/conf/multiconfig/qemuamd64-buster-tgz.conf
>