Adding Applications To OpenMoko The Right Way

[pHilipp Zabel]

On 8/30/07, Jeff Rush <jeff at taupro.com> wrote:
> Lars Hallberg wrote:
> > And this is something we as third party developers normally don't want
> > to do... if I understand correctly.
> >
> > Only the core team (and some low level hackers) want to build there own
> > image. The rest of us build software and publish the source... maybe
> > package it in ipkg package and put them on the web so it's easy for
> > everyone to install them to there machine, to replace or add new features.
>
> For myself, I want to build custom images because:
>
>   (a) The OpenMoko distribution is changing rapidly so I need to
>       reflash often to keep up.  I don't want to have to go back
>       in and manually tweak each time, re-installing my favorite
>       ipk files and other non-package changes like adding NFS
>       entries to /etc/fstab and permissions to /etc/host.allow.
>
>   (b) I want to -remove- functionality that comes in the OpenMoko
>       distribution, because it distracts from what I need or where
>       I've written my own replacement.  Can't do that by
>       installing .ipk files and indeed it is hard even with OE since
>       it lacks a notation to omit a .bb file,
> in a manner like Gentoo.
>       What I mean is that OE lacks something like:
>          DISTRO_RDEPENDS = "-openmoko-calculator2"
>       to drop out something.  Instead you have to understand the
>       entire dependency tree and clone/modify the appropriate package.
>
> This week I'm wrestling with how to get a series of empty system directories
> created using OE, for use as custom mountpoints.  I haven't found any examples
> of packages doing rootfs filesystem customization so progress is slow.  I've
> read all the bitbake and OE docs multiple times and while I'm beginning to
> figure it out, there are gaps in the OE docs with a note to add content later,
> and there is little "big picture" OE-general or OM-specific material I can find.
>
> -Jeff
>
>