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The Buildroot manual was recommending following paths for project-specific
packages:
package/<company>/<boardname>/foo/
$BR2_EXTERNAL/package/<boardname>/foo/
However, if a company has several boards, it is often the case that some
packages are common for different boards. Therefore, introducing a
<boardname> path component is not ideal.
This patch changes the recommendation to:
package/<company>/foo/
$BR2_EXTERNAL/package/foo/
Signed-off-by: Thomas De Schampheleire <thomas.de.schampheleire@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
105 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
105 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
// -*- mode:doc -*- ;
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[[outside-br-custom]]
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=== Keeping customizations outside of Buildroot
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As already briefly mentioned in xref:customize-dir-structure[], you can
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place project-specific customizations in two locations:
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* directly within the Buildroot tree, typically maintaining them using
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branches in a version control system so that upgrading to a newer
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Buildroot release is easy.
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* outside of the Buildroot tree, using the +BR2_EXTERNAL+ mechanism.
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This mechanism allows to keep package recipes, board support and
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configuration files outside of the Buildroot tree, while still
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having them nicely integrated in the build logic. This section
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explains how to use +BR2_EXTERNAL+.
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+BR2_EXTERNAL+ is an environment variable that can be used to point to
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a directory that contains Buildroot customizations. It can be passed
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to any Buildroot +make+ invocation. It is automatically saved in the
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hidden +.br-external+ file in the output directory. Thanks to this,
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there is no need to pass +BR2_EXTERNAL+ at every +make+ invocation. It
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can however be changed at any time by passing a new value, and can be
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removed by passing an empty value.
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*Note:* the +BR2_EXTERNAL+ path can be either an absolute or a relative path,
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but if it's passed as a relative path, it is important to note that it
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is interpreted relative to the main Buildroot source directory, *not*
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to the Buildroot output directory.
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Some examples:
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-----
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buildroot/ $ make BR2_EXTERNAL=/path/to/foobar menuconfig
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-----
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From now on, external definitions from the +/path/to/foobar+
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directory will be used:
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-----
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buildroot/ $ make
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buildroot/ $ make legal-info
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-----
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We can switch to another external definitions directory at any time:
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-----
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buildroot/ $ make BR2_EXTERNAL=/where/we/have/barfoo xconfig
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-----
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Or disable the usage of external definitions:
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-----
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buildroot/ $ make BR2_EXTERNAL= xconfig
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-----
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+BR2_EXTERNAL+ allows three different things:
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* One can store all the board-specific configuration files there,
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such as the kernel configuration, the root filesystem overlay, or
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any other configuration file for which Buildroot allows to set its
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location. The +BR2_EXTERNAL+ value is available within the
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Buildroot configuration using +$(BR2_EXTERNAL)+. As an example, one
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could set the +BR2_ROOTFS_OVERLAY+ Buildroot option to
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+$(BR2_EXTERNAL)/board/<boardname>/overlay/+ (to specify a root
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filesystem overlay), or the +BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_CONFIG_FILE+
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Buildroot option to
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+$(BR2_EXTERNAL)/board/<boardname>/kernel.config+ (to specify the
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location of the kernel configuration file).
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* One can store package recipes (i.e. +Config.in+ and
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+<packagename>.mk+), or even custom configuration options and make
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logic. Buildroot automatically includes +$(BR2_EXTERNAL)/Config.in+ to
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make it appear in the top-level configuration menu, and includes
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+$(BR2_EXTERNAL)/external.mk+ with the rest of the makefile logic.
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Providing those two files is mandatory, but they can be empty.
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+
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The main usage of this is to store package recipes. The recommended
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way to do this is to write a +$(BR2_EXTERNAL)/Config.in+ file that
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looks like:
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+
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------
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source "$BR2_EXTERNAL/package/package1/Config.in"
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source "$BR2_EXTERNAL/package/package2/Config.in"
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------
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+
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Then, have a +$(BR2_EXTERNAL)/external.mk+ file that looks like:
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+
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------
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include $(sort $(wildcard $(BR2_EXTERNAL)/package/*/*.mk))
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------
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+
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And then in +$(BR2_EXTERNAL)/package/package1+ and
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+$(BR2_EXTERNAL)/package/package2+ create normal Buildroot
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package recipes, as explained in xref:adding-packages[].
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If you prefer, you can also group the packages in subdirectories
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called <boardname> and adapt the above paths accordingly.
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* One can store Buildroot defconfigs in the +configs+ subdirectory of
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+$(BR2_EXTERNAL)+. Buildroot will automatically show them in the
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output of +make help+ and allow them to be loaded with the normal
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+make <name>_defconfig+ command. They will be visible under the
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+User-provided configs+' label in the 'make help' output.
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