[PATCH 1/3] Add a dedicated function to query debug action to board_api

[Werner Almesberger]

Mike (mwester) wrote:
>   I rather agree with Paul on this.  The proof-of-concept has already
> been done, and all the ingredients are pretty much pre-packaged already.

True, the basics have been around for a very long time. What seems
to be missing is something people can try on their GTA02 and then
go "now if it could also do this ..." (and then implement their
extension).

> All the bitbake recipes, including kexec-tools as well as a mechanism
> to create a minimal rootfs with a menu are already in OE, and are
> running on other devices.

I'd rather see the actual merge happen after OE. OE is a great
heavy-duty tool for the momentous task of building distributions,
but our attempts to sell it to people as a build tool for their
day to day work has been an abysmal failure.

We now have convenient tools for putting together things from
pre-compiled packages so OE can do its work in the background.
This greatly reduces the entrance barrier. (Again, the same
theme - make it easy for people to contribute and they will.)

>   Perhaps when the GTA03 comes out without u-boot at all, there will be
> renewed interest in a menu, and this will come to happen.

Wouldn't you hope that GTA03 will be a bit less of a "matures at
the customer's premises" kind of product than its predecessors ;-)

- Werner