summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/documentation/poky-ref-manual/faq.xml
blob: 03ae7144f7f5a67fb627fdf3260b0742bdadd27d (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
<!DOCTYPE appendix PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">

<appendix id='faq'>
<title>FAQ</title>
<qandaset>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                How does Poky differ from <ulink url='http://www.openembedded.org/'>OpenEmbedded</ulink>?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                Poky is a derivative of <ulink 
                url='http://www.openembedded.org/'>OpenEmbedded</ulink>, a stable, 
                smaller subset focused on the GNOME Mobile environment. Development
                in Poky is closely tied to OpenEmbedded with features being merged
                regularly between the two for mutual benefit.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>





    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                I only have Python 2.4 or 2.5 but BitBake requires Python 2.6.
                Can I still use Poky?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                You can use a stand-alone tarball to provide Python 2.6.
                You can find pre-built 32 and 64-bit versions of Python 2.6 at the following locations:
                <itemizedlist>
                    <listitem><para><ulink url='http://autobuilder.yoctoproject.org/downloads/miscsupport/python-nativesdk-standalone-i586.tar.bz2'></ulink></para></listitem>
                    <listitem><para><ulink url='http://autobuilder.yoctoproject.org/downloads/miscsupport/python-nativesdk-standalone-x86_64.tar.bz2'></ulink></para></listitem>
                </itemizedlist>
            </para>
            <para>
                These tarballs are self-contained with all required libraries and should work 
                on most Linux systems.  
                To use the tarballs extract them into the root 
                directory and run the appropriate command:
                <literallayout class='monospaced'>
     $ export PATH=/opt/poky/sysroots/i586-pokysdk-linux/usr/bin/:$PATH
     $ export PATH=/opt/poky/sysroots/x86_64-pokysdk-linux/usr/bin/:$PATH
                </literallayout>
            </para>
            <para>
                Once you run the command, BitBake uses Python 2.6.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>





    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                How can you claim Poky is stable?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                There are three areas that help with stability;

            <itemizedlist>
                <listitem>
                    <para>
                        We keep Poky small and focused - around 650 packages compared to over 5000 for full OE
                    </para>
                </listitem>
                <listitem>
                    <para>
                        We only support hardware that we have access to for testing
                    </para>
                </listitem>
                <listitem>
                    <para>
                        We have an autobuilder which provides continuous build and integration tests
                    </para>
                </listitem>
            </itemizedlist>
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                How do I get support for my board added to Poky?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                There are two main ways to get a board supported in Poky;
            <itemizedlist>
                <listitem>
                    <para>    
                    Send us the board if we don't have it yet
                    </para>
                </listitem>
                <listitem>
                    <para>
                    Send us bitbake recipes if you have them (see the Poky handbook to find out how to create recipes)
                    </para>
                </listitem>
            </itemizedlist>
                    Usually if it's not a completely exotic board then adding support in Poky should be fairly straightforward.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                Are there any products running poky ?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                The <ulink url='http://vernier.com/labquest/'>Vernier Labquest</ulink> is using Poky (for more about the Labquest see the case study at OpenedHand). There are a number of pre-production devices using Poky and we will announce those as soon as they are released.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                What is the Poky output ?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                The output of a Poky build will depend on how it was started, as the same set of recipes can be used to output various formats. Usually the output is a flashable image ready for the target device.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                How do I add my package to Poky?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                To add a package you need to create a bitbake recipe - see the Poky handbook to find out how to create a recipe.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                Do I have to reflash my entire board with a new poky image when recompiling a package?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                Poky can build packages in various formats, ipk (for ipkg/opkg), Debian package (.deb), or RPM. The packages can then be upgraded using the package tools on the device, much like on a desktop distribution like Ubuntu or Fedora.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                What is GNOME Mobile? What's the difference between GNOME Mobile and GNOME?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                <ulink url='http://www.gnome.org/mobile/'>GNOME Mobile</ulink> is a subset of the GNOME platform targeted at mobile and embedded devices. The the main difference between GNOME Mobile and standard GNOME is that desktop-orientated libraries have been removed, along with deprecated libraries, creating a much smaller footprint. 
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                I see the error 'chmod: XXXXX new permissions are r-xrwxrwx, not r-xr-xr-x'. What's wrong?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                You're probably running the build on an NTFS filesystem. Use a sane one like ext2/3/4 instead!
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                How do I make Poky work in RHEL/CentOS?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                To get Poky working under RHEL/CentOS 5.1 you need to first install some required packages. The standard CentOS packages needed are:
                <itemizedlist>
                    <listitem>
                        <para>
                            "Development tools" (selected during installation)
                        </para>
                    </listitem>
                    <listitem>
                        <para>
                            texi2html
                        </para>
                    </listitem>
                    <listitem>
                        <para>
                            compat-gcc-34
                        </para>
                    </listitem>
                </itemizedlist>
            </para>

            <para>
                On top of those the following external packages are needed:
                <itemizedlist>
                    <listitem>
                        <para>
                            python-sqlite2 from <ulink
                                url='http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/python-sqlite2/'>DAG
                                repository</ulink>
                        </para>
                    </listitem>
                    <listitem>
                        <para>
                            help2man from <ulink
                                url='http://centos.karan.org/el5/extras/testing/i386/RPMS/help2man-1.33.1-2.noarch.rpm'>Karan
                                repository</ulink>
                        </para>
                    </listitem>
                </itemizedlist>
            </para>

            <para>
                Once these packages are installed Poky will be able to build standard images however there 
                may be a problem with QEMU segfaulting. You can either disable the generation of binary 
                locales by setting <glossterm><link linkend='var-ENABLE_BINARY_LOCALE_GENERATION'>ENABLE_BINARY_LOCALE_GENERATION</link>
                </glossterm> to "0" or remove the linux-2.6-execshield.patch from the kernel and rebuild 
                it since its that patch which causes the problems with QEMU.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                I see lots of 404 responses for files on 
                http://autobuilder.yoctoproject.org/sources/*. Is something wrong?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                Nothing is wrong, Poky will check any configured source mirrors before downloading 
                from the upstream sources. It does this searching for both source archives and 
                pre-checked out versions of SCM managed software. This is so in large installations, 
                it can reduce load on the SCM servers themselves. The address above is one of the 
                default mirrors configured into standard Poky so if an upstream source disappears, 
                we can place sources there so builds continue to work.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                I have a machine specific data in a package for one machine only but the package is 
                 being marked as machine specific in all cases, how do I stop it?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                Set <glossterm><link linkend='var-SRC_URI_OVERRIDES_PACKAGE_ARCH'>SRC_URI_OVERRIDES_PACKAGE_ARCH</link>
                </glossterm> = "0" in the .bb file but make sure the package is manually marked as 
                machine specific in the case that needs it. The code which handles <glossterm><link 
                linkend='var-SRC_URI_OVERRIDES_PACKAGE_ARCH'>SRC_URI_OVERRIDES_PACKAGE_ARCH</link></glossterm>
		is in base.bbclass.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                I'm behind a firewall and need to use a proxy server. How do I do that?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                Most source fetching by Poky is done by wget and you therefore need to specify the proxy 
                settings in a .wgetrc file in your home directory. Example settings in that file would be
                'http_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/' and 'ftp_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/'.
                Poky also includes a site.conf.sample file which shows how to configure cvs and git proxy servers
                if needed.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                I'm using Ubuntu Intrepid and am seeing build failures. Whats wrong?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
	        In Intrepid, Ubuntu turned on by default normally optional compile-time security features 
		and warnings. There are more details at <ulink
                url='https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CompilerFlags'>https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CompilerFlags</ulink>.
		You can work around this problem by disabling those options by adding " -Wno-format-security -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE" 
		to the BUILD_CPPFLAGS variable in conf/bitbake.conf.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                Whats the difference between foo and foo-native?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                The *-native targets are designed to run on the system the build is running on. These are usually tools that are needed to assist the build in some way such as quilt-native which is used to apply patches. The non-native version is the one that would run on the target device.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                I'm seeing random build failures. Help?!
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                If the same build is failing in totally different and random ways the most likely explaination is that either the hardware you're running it on has some problem or if you are running it under virtualisation, the virtualisation probably has bugs. Poky processes a massive amount of data causing lots of network, disk and cpu activity and is senstive to even single bit failure in any of these areas. Totally random failures have always been traced back to hardware or virtualisation issues.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
    <qandaentry>
        <question>
            <para>
                What do we need to ship for licence complience?
            </para>
        </question>
        <answer>
            <para>
                This is a difficult question and you need to consult your lawyer for the answer for your specific case. Its worth bearing in mind that for GPL complience there needs to be enough information shipped to allow someone else to rebuild the same end result as you are shipping. This means sharing the source code, any patches applied to it but also any configuration information about how that package was configured and built.
            </para>
        </answer>
    </qandaentry>
</qandaset>
</appendix>
<!-- 
vim: expandtab tw=80 ts=4 
-->