<rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

<rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Robert P. J. Day]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 2719 bytes --]


  i mentioned this to scott rifenbark privately a few days ago, but i
figured i might as well antagonize a few people on the list by saying
it publicly -- the yocto FAQ as it stands is pretty much worthless.

  https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/FAQ

  by way of explanation, i'll reproduce the first part of the superb
foreword in the subversion red book:

===== start =====

A bad Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) sheet is one that is composed
not of the questions people actually ask, but of the questions the
FAQ's author wishes people would ask. Perhaps you've seen the type
before:

Q: How can I use Glorbosoft XYZ to maximize team productivity?

A: Many of our customers want to know how they can maximize
productivity through our patented office groupware innovations. The
answer is simple. First, click on the File menu, scroll down to
Increase Productivity, then…

The problem with such FAQs is that they are not, in a literal sense,
FAQs at all. No one ever called the tech support line and asked, “How
can we maximize productivity?” Rather, people asked highly specific
questions, such as “How can we change the calendaring system to send
reminders two days in advance instead of one?” and so on. But it's a
lot easier to make up imaginary Frequently Asked Questions than it is
to discover the real ones.

===== end =====

  in other words, a *good* FAQ might be:

"how can i use the yocto prebuilt toolchains to save build time?"

  a *bad* FAQ would be:

"Does the Yocto Project have a special governance model, or is it
managed as an open source project?"

  the kicker is that that last question is, in fact, in the yocto FAQ,
along with a number of other questions that have never been asked by
anyone in the history of the planet.  i chat about yocto with people
on a regular basis, and i can assure you, not a single one of them has
ever asked, "hey, rob, can you explain yocto's governance model?"

  no, what they ask is, "hey, rob, how can i add a single package to
an existing target?"  a question that, i should point out, is not
answered definitively in the existing docs *anywhere*.

  anyway, coffee is ready so i'm going to pour a cup and get back to
work.  you're now free to yell at me.

rday

-- 

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
========================================================================

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Jack Mitchell]

On 26/06/12 10:09, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>
>    snip...

>
>
>    in other words, a *good* FAQ might be:
>
> "how can i use the yocto prebuilt toolchains to save build time?"
>
>    a *bad* FAQ would be:
>
> "Does the Yocto Project have a special governance model, or is it
> managed as an open source project?"
>
>    the kicker is that that last question is, in fact, in the yocto FAQ,
> along with a number of other questions that have never been asked by
> anyone in the history of the planet.  i chat about yocto with people
> on a regular basis, and i can assure you, not a single one of them has
> ever asked, "hey, rob, can you explain yocto's governance model?"
>
>    no, what they ask is, "hey, rob, how can i add a single package to
> an existing target?"  a question that, i should point out, is not
> answered definitively in the existing docs *anywhere*.

I would go as far as saying this is the most asked question on the list 
and definitely a good candidate for the FAQ.

Along with:

Why does package XYZ get built when XYZ has nothing to do with the image 
I imagine I am building.

>
>
>    anyway, coffee is ready so i'm going to pour a cup and get back to
> work.  you're now free to yell at me.
>
> rday
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> yocto mailing list
> yocto@yoctoproject.org
> https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto

-- 

   Jack Mitchell (jack@embed.me.uk)
   Embedded Systems Engineer
   http://www.embed.me.uk

--

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Tomas Frydrych]

On 26/06/12 10:09, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> A bad Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) sheet is one that is composed
> not of the questions people actually ask, but of the questions the
> FAQ's author wishes people would ask. Perhaps you've seen the type
> before:

Nice quote, but unfortunately based on the literal meaning the acronym
rather then insight into the function of a FAQ; asking the right
questions is far more important than finding answers ... ;-)


> "how can i use the yocto prebuilt toolchains to save build time?"

Perhaps your question is not asked frequently enough to merit inclusion
in a FAQ, or perhaps it's an a far too advanced topic for a FAQ?


>   a *bad* FAQ would be:
> 
> "Does the Yocto Project have a special governance model, or is it
> managed as an open source project?"

Just because you are not interested in the answer does not make it a
question you should think about ...


>   no, what they ask is, "hey, rob, how can i add a single package to
> an existing target?"  a question that, i should point out, is not
> answered definitively in the existing docs *anywhere*.

There are two correct answers to this: the first one is RTFM; the second
one is that if you want an explicit link to the section of the manual
that explains it to be included in the FAQ, you should write the
appropriate entry for the FAQ and contribute it instead of ranting on
the list.

Tomas

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Paul Eggleton]

On Tuesday 26 June 2012 05:09:34 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>   in other words, a *good* FAQ might be:
> 
> "how can i use the yocto prebuilt toolchains to save build time?"
> 
>   a *bad* FAQ would be:
> 
> "Does the Yocto Project have a special governance model, or is it
> managed as an open source project?"
> 
>   the kicker is that that last question is, in fact, in the yocto FAQ,
> along with a number of other questions that have never been asked by
> anyone in the history of the planet.  i chat about yocto with people
> on a regular basis, and i can assure you, not a single one of them has
> ever asked, "hey, rob, can you explain yocto's governance model?"
> 
>   no, what they ask is, "hey, rob, how can i add a single package to
> an existing target?"  a question that, i should point out, is not
> answered definitively in the existing docs *anywhere*.

You bring up a valid point, but I think it might be worth mentioning that the 
current FAQ evolved from a much less technically-oriented version that was 
produced when the project launched. At that time some people *were* asking the 
kind of questions that you're deriding. I think there's still a section of the 
*non-technical* audience who are interested in answers to those questions.

I suggested to Scott R previously that it might be worth having a project FAQ 
(i.e., what is this project about, what is it intended to be used for etc.) 
and a separate technical FAQ which answers the kind of questions you are 
expecting and that we see often on the mailing list. I think one of the 
reasons that hasn't been done is that we're hoping to introduce a Q&A function 
on the website similar to StackOverflow, where everyone can participate but the 
most appropriate answers bubble up to the top. As yet this has not been 
implemented and I'm not sure when it will be, so it may still be worth looking 
into a static technical FAQ on the wiki until it is.

Scott, what do you think?

Cheers,
Paul

-- 

Paul Eggleton
Intel Open Source Technology Centre

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Paul Eggleton wrote:

> On Tuesday 26 June 2012 05:09:34 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> >   in other words, a *good* FAQ might be:
> >
> > "how can i use the yocto prebuilt toolchains to save build time?"
> >
> >   a *bad* FAQ would be:
> >
> > "Does the Yocto Project have a special governance model, or is it
> > managed as an open source project?"
> >
> >   the kicker is that that last question is, in fact, in the yocto FAQ,
> > along with a number of other questions that have never been asked by
> > anyone in the history of the planet.  i chat about yocto with people
> > on a regular basis, and i can assure you, not a single one of them has
> > ever asked, "hey, rob, can you explain yocto's governance model?"
> >
> >   no, what they ask is, "hey, rob, how can i add a single package to
> > an existing target?"  a question that, i should point out, is not
> > answered definitively in the existing docs *anywhere*.
>
> You bring up a valid point, but I think it might be worth mentioning
> that the current FAQ evolved from a much less technically-oriented
> version that was produced when the project launched. At that time
> some people *were* asking the kind of questions that you're
> deriding. I think there's still a section of the *non-technical*
> audience who are interested in answers to those questions.

  i'm sure there's a place for those less technically-oriented
questions, but i will point out that on the main yocto docs page:

http://www.yoctoproject.org/documentation

you read:

"And, you view a list of commonly asked questions with their answers
by looking at the FAQ."

which, at the moment, simply isn't true.  in any event, that's my
$0.02 worth.  movin' on ...

rday

-- 

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
========================================================================

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Koen Kooi]

Op 26 jun. 2012, om 11:09 heeft Robert P. J. Day het volgende geschreven:

> 
>  i mentioned this to scott rifenbark privately a few days ago, but i
> figured i might as well antagonize a few people on the list by saying
> it publicly -- the yocto FAQ as it stands is pretty much worthless.
> 
>  https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/FAQ
> 
>  by way of explanation, i'll reproduce the first part of the superb
> foreword in the subversion red book:
> 
> ===== start =====
> 
> A bad Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) sheet is one that is composed
> not of the questions people actually ask, but of the questions the
> FAQ's author wishes people would ask. Perhaps you've seen the type
> before:
> 
> Q: How can I use Glorbosoft XYZ to maximize team productivity?
> 
> A: Many of our customers want to know how they can maximize
> productivity through our patented office groupware innovations. The
> answer is simple. First, click on the File menu, scroll down to
> Increase Productivity, then…
> 
> The problem with such FAQs is that they are not, in a literal sense,
> FAQs at all. No one ever called the tech support line and asked, “How
> can we maximize productivity?” Rather, people asked highly specific
> questions, such as “How can we change the calendaring system to send
> reminders two days in advance instead of one?” and so on. But it's a
> lot easier to make up imaginary Frequently Asked Questions than it is
> to discover the real ones.
> 
> ===== end =====
> 
>  in other words, a *good* FAQ might be:
> 
> "how can i use the yocto prebuilt toolchains to save build time?"
> 
>  a *bad* FAQ would be:
> 
> "Does the Yocto Project have a special governance model, or is it
> managed as an open source project?"
> 
>  the kicker is that that last question is, in fact, in the yocto FAQ,
> along with a number of other questions that have never been asked by
> anyone in the history of the planet.  i chat about yocto with people
> on a regular basis, and i can assure you, not a single one of them has
> ever asked, "hey, rob, can you explain yocto's governance model?"
> 
>  no, what they ask is, "hey, rob, how can i add a single package to
> an existing target?"  a question that, i should point out, is not
> answered definitively in the existing docs *anywhere*.

I'm afraid you have fallen into the yocto trap of confusing the umbrella project with the buildsystem project under that umbrella. There's an easy way to find out, everytime you hear someone state 'yocto' you just ask:

	 'Do you mean "yocto" or do you mean "poky"?'. 

The reaction to that can go a few ways and the follow up actions I recommend:

1) People don't get the question and/or don't know the difference between 'yocto' and 'poky'. Pretend you have a nosebleed and walk away, fast
2) People say "Right, I meant the buildsystem, not the umbrella project" or "No, I really meant 'yocto' as the umbrella project". Continue the conversation.
3) People say "Koen put you up to this, didn't he?". You're most likely talking to Dave or Saul, buy them lunch :)

regards,

Koen

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Rifenbark, Scott M]

Thanks all - I enjoyed the rant.  The obvious point is that the FAQ needs attention.  A good thing to do would be if you have a question that you would like included in a "good" FAQ, such as the one mentioned by Robert about how to add a single package, put the question up on this list or actually submit a patch to the list.  As this little discussion thread noted, the FAQ was initially created when the project launched and I think much of it revolved around trying to answer the general "What the hell is Yocto anyway" question.  I think we have moved into a "how do I do this" type of phase now and the FAQ should have more of those types of entries.  That is not to say that questions about the Yocto Project in general should be deleted.  

I will put some attention on the FAQ to try and inject a bit of value into it.  

Thanks, 
Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: yocto-bounces@yoctoproject.org [mailto:yocto-bounces@yoctoproject.org] On Behalf Of Koen Kooi
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 4:30 AM
To: Robert P.J.Day
Cc: Yocto discussion list
Subject: Re: [yocto] <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>


Op 26 jun. 2012, om 11:09 heeft Robert P. J. Day het volgende geschreven:

> 
>  i mentioned this to scott rifenbark privately a few days ago, but i
> figured i might as well antagonize a few people on the list by saying
> it publicly -- the yocto FAQ as it stands is pretty much worthless.
> 
>  https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/FAQ
> 
>  by way of explanation, i'll reproduce the first part of the superb
> foreword in the subversion red book:
> 
> ===== start =====
> 
> A bad Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) sheet is one that is composed
> not of the questions people actually ask, but of the questions the
> FAQ's author wishes people would ask. Perhaps you've seen the type
> before:
> 
> Q: How can I use Glorbosoft XYZ to maximize team productivity?
> 
> A: Many of our customers want to know how they can maximize
> productivity through our patented office groupware innovations. The
> answer is simple. First, click on the File menu, scroll down to
> Increase Productivity, then...
> 
> The problem with such FAQs is that they are not, in a literal sense,
> FAQs at all. No one ever called the tech support line and asked, "How
> can we maximize productivity?" Rather, people asked highly specific
> questions, such as "How can we change the calendaring system to send
> reminders two days in advance instead of one?" and so on. But it's a
> lot easier to make up imaginary Frequently Asked Questions than it is
> to discover the real ones.
> 
> ===== end =====
> 
>  in other words, a *good* FAQ might be:
> 
> "how can i use the yocto prebuilt toolchains to save build time?"
> 
>  a *bad* FAQ would be:
> 
> "Does the Yocto Project have a special governance model, or is it
> managed as an open source project?"
> 
>  the kicker is that that last question is, in fact, in the yocto FAQ,
> along with a number of other questions that have never been asked by
> anyone in the history of the planet.  i chat about yocto with people
> on a regular basis, and i can assure you, not a single one of them has
> ever asked, "hey, rob, can you explain yocto's governance model?"
> 
>  no, what they ask is, "hey, rob, how can i add a single package to
> an existing target?"  a question that, i should point out, is not
> answered definitively in the existing docs *anywhere*.

I'm afraid you have fallen into the yocto trap of confusing the umbrella project with the buildsystem project under that umbrella. There's an easy way to find out, everytime you hear someone state 'yocto' you just ask:

	 'Do you mean "yocto" or do you mean "poky"?'. 

The reaction to that can go a few ways and the follow up actions I recommend:

1) People don't get the question and/or don't know the difference between 'yocto' and 'poky'. Pretend you have a nosebleed and walk away, fast
2) People say "Right, I meant the buildsystem, not the umbrella project" or "No, I really meant 'yocto' as the umbrella project". Continue the conversation.
3) People say "Koen put you up to this, didn't he?". You're most likely talking to Dave or Saul, buy them lunch :)

regards,

Koen
_______________________________________________
yocto mailing list
yocto@yoctoproject.org
https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Rifenbark, Scott M wrote:

> Thanks all - I enjoyed the rant.  The obvious point is that the FAQ
> needs attention.  A good thing to do would be if you have a question
> that you would like included in a "good" FAQ, such as the one
> mentioned by Robert about how to add a single package, put the
> question up on this list or actually submit a patch to the list.
> As this little discussion thread noted, the FAQ was initially
> created when the project launched and I think much of it revolved
> around trying to answer the general "What the hell is Yocto anyway"
> question.  I think we have moved into a "how do I do this" type of
> phase now and the FAQ should have more of those types of entries.
> That is not to say that questions about the Yocto Project in general
> should be deleted.
>
> I will put some attention on the FAQ to try and inject a bit of
> value into it.

  since the ubiquitous reaction to complaining about something is
always, "don't just whine, do something about it," i'm doing that.
i've started a personal yocto FAQ, based on questions either i've
asked myself, or colleagues or clients have asked me, and i'm posting
them here (obviously a work in progress, typed in over the last hour):

http://www.crashcourse.ca/wiki/index.php/Yocto_FAQ

  i'm collecting questions that clearly belong in a "how do i do X?"
FAQ and, even if i don't know the answer, i'm still going to add the
question to remind me to *find* the answer.

  if you want to add a question and answer (or even just a question
because you *want* to know the answer), drop me a note -- that wiki is
not world-writable and never will be.

  anyway, back to work ...

rday

-- 

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
========================================================================

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Darren Hart]

On 06/26/2012 03:09 AM, Paul Eggleton wrote:
> On Tuesday 26 June 2012 05:09:34 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>>   in other words, a *good* FAQ might be:
>>
>> "how can i use the yocto prebuilt toolchains to save build time?"
>>
>>   a *bad* FAQ would be:
>>
>> "Does the Yocto Project have a special governance model, or is it
>> managed as an open source project?"
>>
>>   the kicker is that that last question is, in fact, in the yocto FAQ,
>> along with a number of other questions that have never been asked by
>> anyone in the history of the planet.  i chat about yocto with people
>> on a regular basis, and i can assure you, not a single one of them has
>> ever asked, "hey, rob, can you explain yocto's governance model?"
>>
>>   no, what they ask is, "hey, rob, how can i add a single package to
>> an existing target?"  a question that, i should point out, is not
>> answered definitively in the existing docs *anywhere*.
> 
> You bring up a valid point, but I think it might be worth mentioning that the 
> current FAQ evolved from a much less technically-oriented version that was 
> produced when the project launched. At that time some people *were* asking the 
> kind of questions that you're deriding. I think there's still a section of the 
> *non-technical* audience who are interested in answers to those questions.
> 
> I suggested to Scott R previously that it might be worth having a project FAQ 
> (i.e., what is this project about, what is it intended to be used for etc.) 
> and a separate technical FAQ which answers the kind of questions you are 
> expecting and that we see often on the mailing list. I think one of the 
> reasons that hasn't been done is that we're hoping to introduce a Q&A function 
> on the website similar to StackOverflow, where everyone can participate but the 
> most appropriate answers bubble up to the top. As yet this has not been 
> implemented and I'm not sure when it will be, so it may still be worth looking 
> into a static technical FAQ on the wiki until it is.

Is "technical FAQ" == "How-Do-I pages" ?


-- 
Darren Hart
Intel Open Source Technology Center
Yocto Project - Linux Kernel

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Rifenbark, Scott M]

Great!  Thanks Robert.

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert P. J. Day [mailto:rpjday@crashcourse.ca] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 8:46 AM
To: Rifenbark, Scott M
Cc: Koen Kooi; Yocto discussion list
Subject: RE: [yocto] <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Rifenbark, Scott M wrote:

> Thanks all - I enjoyed the rant.  The obvious point is that the FAQ
> needs attention.  A good thing to do would be if you have a question
> that you would like included in a "good" FAQ, such as the one
> mentioned by Robert about how to add a single package, put the
> question up on this list or actually submit a patch to the list.
> As this little discussion thread noted, the FAQ was initially
> created when the project launched and I think much of it revolved
> around trying to answer the general "What the hell is Yocto anyway"
> question.  I think we have moved into a "how do I do this" type of
> phase now and the FAQ should have more of those types of entries.
> That is not to say that questions about the Yocto Project in general
> should be deleted.
>
> I will put some attention on the FAQ to try and inject a bit of
> value into it.

  since the ubiquitous reaction to complaining about something is
always, "don't just whine, do something about it," i'm doing that.
i've started a personal yocto FAQ, based on questions either i've
asked myself, or colleagues or clients have asked me, and i'm posting
them here (obviously a work in progress, typed in over the last hour):

http://www.crashcourse.ca/wiki/index.php/Yocto_FAQ

  i'm collecting questions that clearly belong in a "how do i do X?"
FAQ and, even if i don't know the answer, i'm still going to add the
question to remind me to *find* the answer.

  if you want to add a question and answer (or even just a question
because you *want* to know the answer), drop me a note -- that wiki is
not world-writable and never will be.

  anyway, back to work ...

rday

-- 

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
========================================================================

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Paul Eggleton]

On Tuesday 26 June 2012 08:46:45 Darren Hart wrote:
> On 06/26/2012 03:09 AM, Paul Eggleton wrote:
> > I suggested to Scott R previously that it might be worth having a project
> > FAQ (i.e., what is this project about, what is it intended to be used for
> > etc.) and a separate technical FAQ which answers the kind of questions
> > you are expecting and that we see often on the mailing list. I think one
> > of the reasons that hasn't been done is that we're hoping to introduce a
> > Q&A function on the website similar to StackOverflow, where everyone can
> > participate but the most appropriate answers bubble up to the top. As yet
> > this has not been implemented and I'm not sure when it will be, so it may
> > still be worth looking into a static technical FAQ on the wiki until it
> > is.
> 
> Is "technical FAQ" == "How-Do-I pages" ?

Kind of, except most but not all FAQ questions really fit into "How do I...".

Cheers,
Paul

-- 

Paul Eggleton
Intel Open Source Technology Centre

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Paul Eggleton]

On Tuesday 26 June 2012 11:45:50 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>   since the ubiquitous reaction to complaining about something is
> always, "don't just whine, do something about it," i'm doing that.
> i've started a personal yocto FAQ, based on questions either i've
> asked myself, or colleagues or clients have asked me, and i'm posting
> them here (obviously a work in progress, typed in over the last hour):
> 
> http://www.crashcourse.ca/wiki/index.php/Yocto_FAQ
> 
>   i'm collecting questions that clearly belong in a "how do i do X?"
> FAQ and, even if i don't know the answer, i'm still going to add the
> question to remind me to *find* the answer.

Just looking at that page, a couple of items spring to mind:

1) Why are you pointing people to the prefile/postfile options in preference to 
just putting the "common, personal configuration" in local.conf?

2) Your IMAGE_INSTALL_append example needs a leading space in the string or it 
will almost certainly not work (or at least, it will only work when there's 
already a trailing space in the value of IMAGE_INSTALL).

Cheers,
Paul

-- 

Paul Eggleton
Intel Open Source Technology Centre

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Paul Eggleton wrote:

> On Tuesday 26 June 2012 11:45:50 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> >   since the ubiquitous reaction to complaining about something is
> > always, "don't just whine, do something about it," i'm doing that.
> > i've started a personal yocto FAQ, based on questions either i've
> > asked myself, or colleagues or clients have asked me, and i'm posting
> > them here (obviously a work in progress, typed in over the last hour):
> >
> > http://www.crashcourse.ca/wiki/index.php/Yocto_FAQ
> >
> >   i'm collecting questions that clearly belong in a "how do i do X?"
> > FAQ and, even if i don't know the answer, i'm still going to add the
> > question to remind me to *find* the answer.
>
> Just looking at that page, a couple of items spring to mind:
>
> 1) Why are you pointing people to the prefile/postfile options in preference to
> just putting the "common, personal configuration" in local.conf?

  i thought that was the technique for centralizing personal config
preferences that you *didn't* want to manually copy into every
local.conf file you created.  if you add that personal content into
each local.conf, then of course you don't need those options.

> 2) Your IMAGE_INSTALL_append example needs a leading space in the string or it
> will almost certainly not work (or at least, it will only work when there's
> already a trailing space in the value of IMAGE_INSTALL).

  whoops, quite so.

rday

-- 

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
========================================================================

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Paul Eggleton]

On Tuesday 26 June 2012 12:26:28 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>   i thought that was the technique for centralizing personal config
> preferences that you *didn't* want to manually copy into every
> local.conf file you created.  if you add that personal content into
> each local.conf, then of course you don't need those options.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "personal content". Certain settings 
are really part of distro policy and if you're finding that you're setting them 
all the time for all of the builds that you're doing, it would make more sense 
to create a distro layer that sets them - then it's simply a matter of 
ensuring that layer is added to your bblayers.conf and you set DISTRO as 
appropriate.

AFAIK the command line options in question were added to allow frontends to 
inject configuration into bitbake rather than something the user would normally 
use directly.

Cheers,
Paul

-- 

Paul Eggleton
Intel Open Source Technology Centre

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Tomas Frydrych]

On 26/06/12 17:06, Paul Eggleton wrote:
> On Tuesday 26 June 2012 08:46:45 Darren Hart wrote:
>> On 06/26/2012 03:09 AM, Paul Eggleton wrote:
>>> I suggested to Scott R previously that it might be worth having a project
>>> FAQ (i.e., what is this project about, what is it intended to be used for
>>> etc.) and a separate technical FAQ which answers the kind of questions
>>> you are expecting and that we see often on the mailing list. I think one
>>> of the reasons that hasn't been done is that we're hoping to introduce a
>>> Q&A function on the website similar to StackOverflow, where everyone can
>>> participate but the most appropriate answers bubble up to the top. As yet
>>> this has not been implemented and I'm not sure when it will be, so it may
>>> still be worth looking into a static technical FAQ on the wiki until it
>>> is.
>>
>> Is "technical FAQ" == "How-Do-I pages" ?
> 
> Kind of, except most but not all FAQ questions really fit into "How do I...".

Kooen's cheeky point is worth keeping in mind though; the Yocto naming
semantics is not very helpful ;-) Specifically most of the questions
being asked on the Yocto list are about Poky, not Yocto, followed by
questions about meta-yocto, not Yocto-project. Many of the questions
being asked on the list are readily answered by googling for 'Poky
Manual', but clearly very few people understand the Yocto project
semantics enough to do this ...

Tomas


> 
> Cheers,
> Paul
> 

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Paul Eggleton wrote:

> On Tuesday 26 June 2012 12:26:28 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> >   i thought that was the technique for centralizing personal config
> > preferences that you *didn't* want to manually copy into every
> > local.conf file you created.  if you add that personal content into
> > each local.conf, then of course you don't need those options.
>
> I guess it depends on what you mean by "personal content". Certain
> settings are really part of distro policy and if you're finding that
> you're setting them all the time for all of the builds that you're
> doing, it would make more sense to create a distro layer that sets
> them - then it's simply a matter of ensuring that layer is added to
> your bblayers.conf and you set DISTRO as appropriate.
>
> AFAIK the command line options in question were added to allow
> frontends to inject configuration into bitbake rather than something
> the user would normally use directly.

  ok, that makes sense.  but would it also make sense for bitbake to
perhaps support another option that *does* allow personal content to,
say, be effectively appended to one's local.conf.  for instance, every
single local.conf i create immediately gets this added to the end:

SOURCE_MIRROR_URL ?= "file:///home/rpjday/dl/"
INHERIT += "own-mirrors"
BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS = "1"
# BB_NO_NETWORK = "1"

  is there a simpler way to do that?

rday

-- 

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
========================================================================

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Tomas Frydrych wrote:

> Kooen's cheeky point is worth keeping in mind though; the Yocto
> naming semantics is not very helpful ;-) Specifically most of the
> questions being asked on the Yocto list are about Poky, not Yocto,
> followed by questions about meta-yocto, not Yocto-project. Many of
> the questions being asked on the list are readily answered by
> googling for 'Poky Manual', but clearly very few people understand
> the Yocto project semantics enough to do this ...

  and if you want major industry players to take yocto seriously, the
last thing you want to do is answer their heartfelt pleas for
assistance with, "i'm sorry, that's technically not a yocto question,
you should try another mailing list."

  even if you're technically correct, that sort of conversation is not
going to end well.

rday

-- 

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
========================================================================

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Paul Eggleton]

On Tuesday 26 June 2012 12:51:15 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Paul Eggleton wrote:
> > On Tuesday 26 June 2012 12:26:28 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> > >   i thought that was the technique for centralizing personal config
> > > 
> > > preferences that you *didn't* want to manually copy into every
> > > local.conf file you created.  if you add that personal content into
> > > each local.conf, then of course you don't need those options.
> > 
> > I guess it depends on what you mean by "personal content". Certain
> > settings are really part of distro policy and if you're finding that
> > you're setting them all the time for all of the builds that you're
> > doing, it would make more sense to create a distro layer that sets
> > them - then it's simply a matter of ensuring that layer is added to
> > your bblayers.conf and you set DISTRO as appropriate.
> > 
> > AFAIK the command line options in question were added to allow
> > frontends to inject configuration into bitbake rather than something
> > the user would normally use directly.
> 
>   ok, that makes sense.  but would it also make sense for bitbake to
> perhaps support another option that *does* allow personal content to,
> say, be effectively appended to one's local.conf.  for instance, every
> single local.conf i create immediately gets this added to the end:
> 
> SOURCE_MIRROR_URL ?= "file:///home/rpjday/dl/"
> INHERIT += "own-mirrors"
> BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS = "1"
> # BB_NO_NETWORK = "1"

OK, looking at the settings you've listed, I think these are the kinds of 
things that site.conf was invented for - stuff that is specific not to the 
builds you are doing but to the host machine / site. You can simply put these 
settings in a file called site.conf next to local.conf and they'll be read from 
there; for new build directories you can just copy it in or symlink it from 
some common location.

Cheers,
Paul

-- 

Paul Eggleton
Intel Open Source Technology Centre

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Paul Eggleton wrote:

> On Tuesday 26 June 2012 12:51:15 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> > On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Paul Eggleton wrote:
> > > On Tuesday 26 June 2012 12:26:28 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> > > >   i thought that was the technique for centralizing personal config
> > > >
> > > > preferences that you *didn't* want to manually copy into every
> > > > local.conf file you created.  if you add that personal content into
> > > > each local.conf, then of course you don't need those options.
> > >
> > > I guess it depends on what you mean by "personal content". Certain
> > > settings are really part of distro policy and if you're finding that
> > > you're setting them all the time for all of the builds that you're
> > > doing, it would make more sense to create a distro layer that sets
> > > them - then it's simply a matter of ensuring that layer is added to
> > > your bblayers.conf and you set DISTRO as appropriate.
> > >
> > > AFAIK the command line options in question were added to allow
> > > frontends to inject configuration into bitbake rather than something
> > > the user would normally use directly.
> >
> >   ok, that makes sense.  but would it also make sense for bitbake to
> > perhaps support another option that *does* allow personal content to,
> > say, be effectively appended to one's local.conf.  for instance, every
> > single local.conf i create immediately gets this added to the end:
> >
> > SOURCE_MIRROR_URL ?= "file:///home/rpjday/dl/"
> > INHERIT += "own-mirrors"
> > BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS = "1"
> > # BB_NO_NETWORK = "1"
>
> OK, looking at the settings you've listed, I think these are the
> kinds of things that site.conf was invented for - stuff that is
> specific not to the builds you are doing but to the host machine /
> site. You can simply put these settings in a file called site.conf
> next to local.conf and they'll be read from there; for new build
> directories you can just copy it in or symlink it from some common
> location.

  that still requires just a touch of user intervention.  no totally
automatic way to do that, then?  it's at least an improvement over
manual copying, thanks.

rday

-- 

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
========================================================================

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Rifenbark, Scott M]

So this situation might lend itself to a nice FAQ question.... Something like "How do I isolate site and machine specific information during a build?"  And the solution can tell them how to use a site.conf file.

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: yocto-bounces@yoctoproject.org [mailto:yocto-bounces@yoctoproject.org] On Behalf Of Paul Eggleton
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 10:02 AM
To: Robert P. J. Day
Cc: yocto@yoctoproject.org
Subject: Re: [yocto] <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

On Tuesday 26 June 2012 12:51:15 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Paul Eggleton wrote:
> > On Tuesday 26 June 2012 12:26:28 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> > >   i thought that was the technique for centralizing personal config
> > > 
> > > preferences that you *didn't* want to manually copy into every
> > > local.conf file you created.  if you add that personal content into
> > > each local.conf, then of course you don't need those options.
> > 
> > I guess it depends on what you mean by "personal content". Certain
> > settings are really part of distro policy and if you're finding that
> > you're setting them all the time for all of the builds that you're
> > doing, it would make more sense to create a distro layer that sets
> > them - then it's simply a matter of ensuring that layer is added to
> > your bblayers.conf and you set DISTRO as appropriate.
> > 
> > AFAIK the command line options in question were added to allow
> > frontends to inject configuration into bitbake rather than something
> > the user would normally use directly.
> 
>   ok, that makes sense.  but would it also make sense for bitbake to
> perhaps support another option that *does* allow personal content to,
> say, be effectively appended to one's local.conf.  for instance, every
> single local.conf i create immediately gets this added to the end:
> 
> SOURCE_MIRROR_URL ?= "file:///home/rpjday/dl/"
> INHERIT += "own-mirrors"
> BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS = "1"
> # BB_NO_NETWORK = "1"

OK, looking at the settings you've listed, I think these are the kinds of 
things that site.conf was invented for - stuff that is specific not to the 
builds you are doing but to the host machine / site. You can simply put these 
settings in a file called site.conf next to local.conf and they'll be read from 
there; for new build directories you can just copy it in or symlink it from 
some common location.

Cheers,
Paul

-- 

Paul Eggleton
Intel Open Source Technology Centre
_______________________________________________
yocto mailing list
yocto@yoctoproject.org
https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Paul Eggleton]

On Tuesday 26 June 2012 13:05:21 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Paul Eggleton wrote:
> > On Tuesday 26 June 2012 12:51:15 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> > >   ok, that makes sense.  but would it also make sense for bitbake to
> > > perhaps support another option that *does* allow personal content to,
> > > say, be effectively appended to one's local.conf.  for instance, every
> > > single local.conf i create immediately gets this added to the end:
> > > 
> > > SOURCE_MIRROR_URL ?= "file:///home/rpjday/dl/"
> > > INHERIT += "own-mirrors"
> > > BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS = "1"
> > > # BB_NO_NETWORK = "1"
> > 
> > OK, looking at the settings you've listed, I think these are the
> > kinds of things that site.conf was invented for - stuff that is
> > specific not to the builds you are doing but to the host machine /
> > site. You can simply put these settings in a file called site.conf
> > next to local.conf and they'll be read from there; for new build
> > directories you can just copy it in or symlink it from some common
> > location.
> 
>   that still requires just a touch of user intervention.  no totally
> automatic way to do that, then?  it's at least an improvement over
> manual copying, thanks.

I have thought about this - it would be great if oe-init-build-env could 
copy/symlink your customised version from somewhere automatically every time; 
however the question would be how would it know where to copy it from? I'm not 
sure an added command-line option would be much better than just getting 
people to copy/symlink it in manually.

Cheers,
Paul

-- 

Paul Eggleton
Intel Open Source Technology Centre

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Rifenbark, Scott M wrote:

> So this situation might lend itself to a nice FAQ question....
> Something like "How do I isolate site and machine specific
> information during a build?"  And the solution can tell them how to
> use a site.conf file.

  yes, but it would also need information on ordering of consultation.
from bitbake.conf:

require conf/abi_version.conf
include conf/site.conf
include conf/auto.conf
include conf/local.conf
include conf/build/${BUILD_SYS}.conf
include conf/target/${TARGET_SYS}.conf
include conf/machine/${MACHINE}.conf
include conf/machine-sdk/${SDKMACHINE}.conf
include conf/distro/${DISTRO}.conf
include conf/distro/defaultsetup.conf
include conf/documentation.conf
require conf/sanity.conf

  is it safe to assume that the ordering there is important, and that
files are consulted top down?  if that's the case, it's useful to
explain that the site.conf file would be consulted before one's
local.conf file (if that's in fact the case).

rday

-- 

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
========================================================================

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Paul Eggleton wrote:

> On Tuesday 26 June 2012 13:05:21 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> > On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Paul Eggleton wrote:
> > > On Tuesday 26 June 2012 12:51:15 Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> > > >   ok, that makes sense.  but would it also make sense for bitbake to
> > > > perhaps support another option that *does* allow personal content to,
> > > > say, be effectively appended to one's local.conf.  for instance, every
> > > > single local.conf i create immediately gets this added to the end:
> > > >
> > > > SOURCE_MIRROR_URL ?= "file:///home/rpjday/dl/"
> > > > INHERIT += "own-mirrors"
> > > > BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS = "1"
> > > > # BB_NO_NETWORK = "1"
> > >
> > > OK, looking at the settings you've listed, I think these are the
> > > kinds of things that site.conf was invented for - stuff that is
> > > specific not to the builds you are doing but to the host machine /
> > > site. You can simply put these settings in a file called site.conf
> > > next to local.conf and they'll be read from there; for new build
> > > directories you can just copy it in or symlink it from some common
> > > location.
> >
> >   that still requires just a touch of user intervention.  no totally
> > automatic way to do that, then?  it's at least an improvement over
> > manual copying, thanks.
>
> I have thought about this - it would be great if oe-init-build-env could
> copy/symlink your customised version from somewhere automatically every time;
> however the question would be how would it know where to copy it from? I'm not
> sure an added command-line option would be much better than just getting
> people to copy/symlink it in manually.

  that's fine, i'll at least note this shortcut.

rday

-- 

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
========================================================================

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Tomas Frydrych]

On 26/06/12 17:53, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>   and if you want major industry players to take yocto seriously, the
> last thing you want to do is answer their heartfelt pleas for
> assistance with, "i'm sorry, that's technically not a yocto question,
> you should try another mailing list."

That's never been case on this list as far as I recall, folk here are
pretty responsive to questions being asked.

At the same time, OE/Poky/Yocto is a fairly complex framework and nobody
should expect that the necessary expertize to build a commercial grade
products with it can be acquired by simply reading a FAQ, no matter how
well written, or by just endlessly asking questions on a mailing list.
As a commercial player you are either prepared to make the in house
investment that is necessary to acquire that expertize (reading the
documentation and studying the source code, etc.), or you you can buy
the expertize on commercial basis from someone who has it.

Tomas

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Brian Duffy]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1457 bytes --]

No, an FAQ should not get you the expertise to create a commercial grade
product. Reading the documentation should though. You don't want users to
have to study source code.

On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 1:18 PM, Tomas Frydrych <tf+lists.yocto@r-finger.com
> wrote:

> On 26/06/12 17:53, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> >   and if you want major industry players to take yocto seriously, the
> > last thing you want to do is answer their heartfelt pleas for
> > assistance with, "i'm sorry, that's technically not a yocto question,
> > you should try another mailing list."
>
> That's never been case on this list as far as I recall, folk here are
> pretty responsive to questions being asked.
>
> At the same time, OE/Poky/Yocto is a fairly complex framework and nobody
> should expect that the necessary expertize to build a commercial grade
> products with it can be acquired by simply reading a FAQ, no matter how
> well written, or by just endlessly asking questions on a mailing list.
> As a commercial player you are either prepared to make the in house
> investment that is necessary to acquire that expertize (reading the
> documentation and studying the source code, etc.), or you you can buy
> the expertize on commercial basis from someone who has it.
>
> Tomas
> _______________________________________________
> yocto mailing list
> yocto@yoctoproject.org
> https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto
>



-- 
Duff

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2065 bytes --]

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Tim Bird]

On 06/26/2012 10:18 AM, Tomas Frydrych wrote:
> On 26/06/12 17:53, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>>   and if you want major industry players to take yocto seriously, the
>> last thing you want to do is answer their heartfelt pleas for
>> assistance with, "i'm sorry, that's technically not a yocto question,
>> you should try another mailing list."
> 
> That's never been case on this list as far as I recall, folk here are
> pretty responsive to questions being asked.
> 
> At the same time, OE/Poky/Yocto is a fairly complex framework and nobody
> should expect that the necessary expertize to build a commercial grade
> products with it can be acquired by simply reading a FAQ, no matter how
> well written, or by just endlessly asking questions on a mailing list.
> As a commercial player you are either prepared to make the in house
> investment that is necessary to acquire that expertize (reading the
> documentation and studying the source code, etc.), or you you can buy
> the expertize on commercial basis from someone who has it.

Well, granted that OE/Poky/Yocto is fairly complex.  I've followed
OE for years (though never successfully built anything with it).
I had my first successful build of (Poky?, Yocto?) just recently,
with a build image I got from Dave Stewart at LinuxCon Japan.
(Thanks very much Dave!).

However, complexity is no excuse for terrible FAQs.  And the FAQ
on the wiki is pretty bad.  For example, after reading various FAQs
I still have no idea what kind of thing "Poky" is.  I know
that bitbake is a build tool.  I know that OE is a package
meta-information project.  Yocto Project is an umbrella project
for a lot of tools and technologies (Poky among them).  But is
Poky a distro (sample/reference or otherwise?) or something else?

When I ran my recently-built image, my target /etc/issue had this content:
"Yocto (Built by Poky 7.0) 1.2"

Is Poky a build system?  A distro? a managed set of package sources
and build information?

I don't even know what to make of this.  And this is from a developer
pushing Yocto inside my company (where we are making the "in-house
investment" that is claimed to be needed to do something with this.)

Now, here's my disclaimer: I read the manuals in the past
and found them hard to follow, and thus finding my desire to
read them again somewhat diminished, I haven't done so lately.
Also, I don't mean to pick on "Poky" - that's just the thing du-jour
that I'm not clear about within the Yocto Project.
Maybe the definition of Poky is crystal clear somewhere in the docs.
If so, sorry for the rant.

But yeah, a FAQ cleanup and build-out would be good.  I think one
problem is that various people who are qualified to make FAQ entries
are so close to the project that certain features and terminology
are second-nature to them, and go unspoken or unclarified in the
entries. I'm not in this category, so if I find some time I'll
try to make a few FAQ entries that address the points of
confusion I've seen.
 -- Tim

=============================
Tim Bird
Architecture Group Chair, CE Workgroup of the Linux Foundation
Senior Staff Engineer, Sony Network Entertainment
=============================

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Tomas Frydrych]

Hi Tim,

On 26/06/12 19:52, Tim Bird wrote:
> On 06/26/2012 10:18 AM, Tomas Frydrych wrote:
> For example, after reading various FAQs
> I still have no idea what kind of thing "Poky" is.  I know
> that bitbake is a build tool.  I know that OE is a package
> meta-information project.  Yocto Project is an umbrella project
> for a lot of tools and technologies (Poky among them).  But is
> Poky a distro (sample/reference or otherwise?) or something else?

For those of us who have been around Poky well before Yocto came around,
we know what Poky used to be, have some inkling what it is, but we are
not always entirely clear what Yocto is. :-)


> When I ran my recently-built image, my target /etc/issue had this content:
> "Yocto (Built by Poky 7.0) 1.2"

My understanding (with the above disclaimer!) is that Poky is a build
system, Yocto is a distro, so I read the above 'Yocto v1.2 image built
by the Poky v7.0 tool'. I think the point of maintaining the distinction
is that you can use Poky without the Yocto Distro (/meta-yocto).

Tomas

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Tomas Frydrych]

Hi,

On 26/06/12 18:59, Brian Duffy wrote:
> No, an FAQ should not get you the expertise to create a commercial grade
> product. Reading the documentation should though. You don't want users to
> have to study source code.

If you were paying for the tools, then that would be a reasonable
expectation, but you are not. It is entirely fair to point out that the
documentation is lacking; it is not at all fair to expect that someone
will fix it for you at their own expense. If you are working on a
commercial product, you can, of course, pay someone to improve the
documentation (and even contribute it back to the project).

Also, I think in the Poky context it is better to talk about developers
rather than users; to build a commercial product, your team will need to
have a pretty solid grasp of every aspect of a Linux system.

Tomas

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Koen Kooi]

Op 27 jun. 2012 om 11:09 heeft Tomas Frydrych <tf+lists.yocto@r-finger.com> het volgende geschreven:

> Hi Tim,
> 
> On 26/06/12 19:52, Tim Bird wrote:
>> On 06/26/2012 10:18 AM, Tomas Frydrych wrote:
>> For example, after reading various FAQs
>> I still have no idea what kind of thing "Poky" is.  I know
>> that bitbake is a build tool.  I know that OE is a package
>> meta-information project.  Yocto Project is an umbrella project
>> for a lot of tools and technologies (Poky among them).  But is
>> Poky a distro (sample/reference or otherwise?) or something else?
> 
> For those of us who have been around Poky well before Yocto came around,
> we know what Poky used to be, have some inkling what it is, but we are
> not always entirely clear what Yocto is. :-)
> 
> 
>> When I ran my recently-built image, my target /etc/issue had this content:
>> "Yocto (Built by Poky 7.0) 1.2"
> 
> My understanding (with the above disclaimer!) is that Poky is a build
> system, Yocto is a distro, so I read the above 'Yocto v1.2 image built
> by the Poky v7.0 tool'. I think the point of maintaining the distinction
> is that you can use Poky without the Yocto Distro (/meta-yocto).


Yocto is NOT a distro. Poky is both a distro and buildsystem. This thread highlights the reason the oe folks have been pushing to get rid of the 'poky' name completely to avoid needless confusing situations like this. 
It's sad to see that even the official stuff gets it wrong...



> 
> Tomas
> _______________________________________________
> yocto mailing list
> yocto@yoctoproject.org
> https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Jeff Osier-Mixon]

Hi all - looks like it has been a busy morning while I wasn't looking!

I was the last one to touch the FAQ on the wiki, and I can attest that
its goal is not to be an end-all be-all technical FAQ, of the how-do-I
variety or any other. It should have more correct language in it, to
which I will attend directly.

We DO have an interactive technical FAQ planned along with a full
upgrade on the website sometime in August. Meanwhile, we can certainly
use that FAQ for some actual questions that come up frequently, like
adding a package. I can add that immediately, and will point toward
Robert's FAQ page as well.

Koen quoth:
>         'Do you mean "yocto" or do you mean "poky"?'.
>
> The reaction to that can go a few ways and the follow up actions I recommend:
>
> 1) People don't get the question and/or don't know the difference between 'yocto' and 'poky'. Pretend you have a nosebleed and walk away, fast
> 2) People say "Right, I meant the buildsystem, not the umbrella project" or "No, I really meant 'yocto' as the umbrella project". Continue the conversation.
> 3) People say "Koen put you up to this, didn't he?". You're most likely talking to Dave or Saul, buy them lunch :)

ROFL

-- 
Jeff Osier-Mixon http://jefro.net/blog
Yocto Project Community Manager @Intel http://yoctoproject.org

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Chris Hallinan]

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On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 10:59 AM, Koen Kooi <koen@beagleboard.org> wrote:

>
>
> Op 27 jun. 2012 om 11:09 heeft Tomas Frydrych <tf+lists.yocto@r-finger.com>
> het volgende geschreven:
>
> > Hi Tim,
> >
> > On 26/06/12 19:52, Tim Bird wrote:
> >> On 06/26/2012 10:18 AM, Tomas Frydrych wrote:
> >> For example, after reading various FAQs
> >> I still have no idea what kind of thing "Poky" is.  I know
> >> that bitbake is a build tool.  I know that OE is a package
> >> meta-information project.  Yocto Project is an umbrella project
> >> for a lot of tools and technologies (Poky among them).  But is
> >> Poky a distro (sample/reference or otherwise?) or something else?
> >
> > For those of us who have been around Poky well before Yocto came around,
> > we know what Poky used to be, have some inkling what it is, but we are
> > not always entirely clear what Yocto is. :-)
> >
> >
> >> When I ran my recently-built image, my target /etc/issue had this
> content:
> >> "Yocto (Built by Poky 7.0) 1.2"
> >
> > My understanding (with the above disclaimer!) is that Poky is a build
> > system, Yocto is a distro, so I read the above 'Yocto v1.2 image built
> > by the Poky v7.0 tool'. I think the point of maintaining the distinction
> > is that you can use Poky without the Yocto Distro (/meta-yocto).
>
>
> Yocto is NOT a distro. Poky is both a distro and buildsystem. This thread
> highlights the reason the oe folks have been pushing to get rid of the
> 'poky' name completely to avoid needless confusing situations like this.
> It's sad to see that even the official stuff gets it wrong...
>
>
I took a stab at clarifying the terminology in a blog post back in April.
 I *think* I got it mostly right ;)

http://blogs.mentor.com/chrishallinan/blog/2012/04/13/yocto-versus-poky-versus-angstrom-etc/

Regards,

Chris
--
Life is like Linux - it never stands still.

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Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Koen Kooi]

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Op 27 jun. 2012 om 18:43 heeft Chris Hallinan <challinan@gmail.com> het volgende geschreven:

> On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 10:59 AM, Koen Kooi <koen@beagleboard.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> Op 27 jun. 2012 om 11:09 heeft Tomas Frydrych <tf+lists.yocto@r-finger.com> het volgende geschreven:
> 
> > Hi Tim,
> >
> > On 26/06/12 19:52, Tim Bird wrote:
> >> On 06/26/2012 10:18 AM, Tomas Frydrych wrote:
> >> For example, after reading various FAQs
> >> I still have no idea what kind of thing "Poky" is.  I know
> >> that bitbake is a build tool.  I know that OE is a package
> >> meta-information project.  Yocto Project is an umbrella project
> >> for a lot of tools and technologies (Poky among them).  But is
> >> Poky a distro (sample/reference or otherwise?) or something else?
> >
> > For those of us who have been around Poky well before Yocto came around,
> > we know what Poky used to be, have some inkling what it is, but we are
> > not always entirely clear what Yocto is. :-)
> >
> >
> >> When I ran my recently-built image, my target /etc/issue had this content:
> >> "Yocto (Built by Poky 7.0) 1.2"
> >
> > My understanding (with the above disclaimer!) is that Poky is a build
> > system, Yocto is a distro, so I read the above 'Yocto v1.2 image built
> > by the Poky v7.0 tool'. I think the point of maintaining the distinction
> > is that you can use Poky without the Yocto Distro (/meta-yocto).
> 
> 
> Yocto is NOT a distro. Poky is both a distro and buildsystem. This thread highlights the reason the oe folks have been pushing to get rid of the 'poky' name completely to avoid needless confusing situations like this.
> It's sad to see that even the official stuff gets it wrong...
> 
> 
> I took a stab at clarifying the terminology in a blog post back in April.  I *think* I got it mostly right ;) 
> 
> http://blogs.mentor.com/chrishallinan/blog/2012/04/13/yocto-versus-poky-versus-angstrom-etc/

That sums it up pretty good!



> 
> Regards,
> 
> Chris
> --
> Life is like Linux - it never stands still.
> _______________________________________________
> yocto mailing list
> yocto@yoctoproject.org
> https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto

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Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Tomas Frydrych]

Hi Koen,

On 27/06/12 15:59, Koen Kooi wrote:
> Yocto is NOT a distro. 

Is that so? :-), meta-yocto distro.conf:

DISTRO = "poky"
DISTRO_NAME = "Yocto (Built by Poky 7.0)"
DISTRO_VERSION = "1.2"

I am well aware that textual meaning is pretty much constructed by the
reader, and that authorial intent is an elusive concept, but I am ready
to argue that the conventional understanding of the above is that Poky
is a build tool, and Yocto is the public name of the distro that you
build if you use meta-yocto. To read that as 'Yocto is NOT a distro' I
think requires a definite pre-understanding that Yocto is not a distro,
which would need to come from some other source (or perhaps it is an
axiom of faith; myself, I tend hold firmly to the authority of the
source code alone). I shall not deny you the right to hold to such a
reading, but I do reserve the right to deconstruct it. :-)


> This thread highlights the reason the oe folks have been pushing to get rid of the 'poky' name completely

Perhaps one of the reasons; but then the erasure of Poky would mean that
you could no longer say 'Yocto is a NOT a distro', which I suspect would
achieve the very opposite of what you seek (and, perhaps more
importantly, might cost Dave and Saul a lunch or two). Personally, I
think much better solution would be if the distro was simply called Poky
v7.0, then we could all say 'Yocto is NOT a distro!' with conviction.
Plus Poky is such a lovely name, don't you think? ;-)

Tomas

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Philip Balister]

On 06/26/2012 12:53 PM, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Tomas Frydrych wrote:
>
>> Kooen's cheeky point is worth keeping in mind though; the Yocto
>> naming semantics is not very helpful ;-) Specifically most of the
>> questions being asked on the Yocto list are about Poky, not Yocto,
>> followed by questions about meta-yocto, not Yocto-project. Many of
>> the questions being asked on the list are readily answered by
>> googling for 'Poky Manual', but clearly very few people understand
>> the Yocto project semantics enough to do this ...
>
>    and if you want major industry players to take yocto seriously, the
> last thing you want to do is answer their heartfelt pleas for
> assistance with, "i'm sorry, that's technically not a yocto question,
> you should try another mailing list."
>
>    even if you're technically correct, that sort of conversation is not
> going to end well.

The number one question I get asked about the Yocto Project (this is 
from an audience of people in the software radio area) is how the Yocto 
project relates to OpenEmbedded (and sometimes Angstrom).

Having a realy good answer to this on the FAQ would be awesome.

Philip

PS: Yes, I know this thread is a few days old. I'm on vacation, sue me :)

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Philip Balister]

On 06/26/2012 12:53 PM, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Tomas Frydrych wrote:
>
>> Kooen's cheeky point is worth keeping in mind though; the Yocto
>> naming semantics is not very helpful ;-) Specifically most of the
>> questions being asked on the Yocto list are about Poky, not Yocto,
>> followed by questions about meta-yocto, not Yocto-project. Many of
>> the questions being asked on the list are readily answered by
>> googling for 'Poky Manual', but clearly very few people understand
>> the Yocto project semantics enough to do this ...
>
>    and if you want major industry players to take yocto seriously, the
> last thing you want to do is answer their heartfelt pleas for
> assistance with, "i'm sorry, that's technically not a yocto question,
> you should try another mailing list."
>
>    even if you're technically correct, that sort of conversation is not
> going to end well.

The number one question I get asked about the Yocto Project (this is 
from an audience of people in the software radio area) is how the Yocto 
project relates to OpenEmbedded (and sometimes Angstrom).

Having a realy good answer to this on the FAQ would be awesome.

Philip

PS: Yes, I know this thread is a few days old. I'm on vacation, sue me :)

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Koen Kooi]

Op 27 jun. 2012 om 22:14 heeft Tomas Frydrych <tf+lists.yocto@r-finger.com> het volgende geschreven:

> Hi Koen,
> 
> On 27/06/12 15:59, Koen Kooi wrote:
>> Yocto is NOT a distro. 
> 
> Is that so? :-), meta-yocto distro.conf:
> 
> DISTRO = "poky"
> DISTRO_NAME = "Yocto (Built by Poky 7.0)"
> DISTRO_VERSION = "1.2"
> 
> I am well aware that textual meaning is pretty much constructed by the
> reader, and that authorial intent is an elusive concept, but I am ready
> to argue that the conventional understanding of the above is that Poky
> is a build tool, and Yocto is the public name of the distro that you
> build if you use meta-yocto. To read that as 'Yocto is NOT a distro' I
> think requires a definite pre-understanding that Yocto is not a distro,
> which would need to come from some other source (or perhaps it is an
> axiom of faith; myself, I tend hold firmly to the authority of the
> source code alone). I shall not deny you the right to hold to such a
> reading, but I do reserve the right to deconstruct it. :-)

It's actually the catchphrase on the official slides: It's not a distro, it builds you one



>  thread highlights the reason the oe folks have been pushing to get rid of the 'poky' name completely
> 
> Perhaps one of the reasons; but then the erasure of Poky would mean that
> you could no longer say 'Yocto is a NOT a distro', which I suspect would
> achieve the very opposite of what you seek (and, perhaps more
> importantly, might cost Dave and Saul a lunch or two). Personally, I
> think much better solution would be if the distro was simply called Poky
> v7.0, then we could all say 'Yocto is NOT a distro!' with conviction.
> Plus Poky is such a lovely name, don't you think? ;-)

I have no problem with poky-the-distro, I have a problem with poky-the-buildsystem. I warned mallum about this confusion years ago, but you know how stubborn he can be :)



> 
> Tomas
> _______________________________________________
> yocto mailing list
> yocto@yoctoproject.org
> https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Tomas Frydrych]

Hi Koen,

On 27/06/12 22:58, Koen Kooi wrote:
> I have no problem with poky-the-distro, I have a problem with
> poky-the-buildsystem. I warned mallum about this confusion years ago,
> but you know how stubborn he can be :)

The Yocto naming confusion is entirely of Yocto making, nothing at all
to do with days of yore. There was never any confusion about what Poky
was before Yocto, just unhappiness of some that Poky was not just a
distro. :)

Poky-the-buildsystem was simply necessary. OE-the-buildsystem is a
wonderful, rich, community project, but one in a constant and
unpredictable flux. This is great for tinkering, but PITA when trying to
develop and long term maintain a product (much bigger problem than what
sparked this thread for sure). In the absence of a clearly defined
process for the OE-the-buildsystem Poky had to bring sanity to the
buildsystem itself and could not be just a distro. It introduced QA,
releases, it focused on facilitating customization and manageable
upgrade paths (and even provided some documentation!).

Yocto is based on Poky; if it was not, it would need to create something
just like Poky (the alternative would be asserting complete control over
OE as a whole, not good I think). OE has benefited from the Poky effort
over the last seven years, and it is a better ecosystem for it. At the
same time, the OE systemd situation (a major system level change without
adequate consideration of the upgrade path) suggests to me that the need
for a sanitized OE-derivative remains.

I shut up now. Really. Maybe. :-)

(Perhaps I should add that I am not formally affiliated with the Yocto
project in any way, my opinions are really my own, not someone else's or
driven by a policy, I have a long history with Poky, so I am definitely
biased in a particular way, I work with Poky on daily basis, and I
tinker with Poky after hours.)

Tomas

Re: <rant>the current yocto FAQ is pretty much valueless</rant>

[Philip Balister]

On 06/28/2012 03:44 AM, Tomas Frydrych wrote:
> Hi Koen,
>
> On 27/06/12 22:58, Koen Kooi wrote:
>> I have no problem with poky-the-distro, I have a problem with
>> poky-the-buildsystem. I warned mallum about this confusion years ago,
>> but you know how stubborn he can be :)
>
> The Yocto naming confusion is entirely of Yocto making, nothing at all
> to do with days of yore. There was never any confusion about what Poky
> was before Yocto, just unhappiness of some that Poky was not just a
> distro. :)
>
> Poky-the-buildsystem was simply necessary. OE-the-buildsystem is a
> wonderful, rich, community project, but one in a constant and
> unpredictable flux. This is great for tinkering, but PITA when trying to
> develop and long term maintain a product (much bigger problem than what
> sparked this thread for sure). In the absence of a clearly defined
> process for the OE-the-buildsystem Poky had to bring sanity to the
> buildsystem itself and could not be just a distro. It introduced QA,
> releases, it focused on facilitating customization and manageable
> upgrade paths (and even provided some documentation!).

Poky used to be a build system + distro based on OpenEmbedded. Anything 
else is marketing :) Poky is now a distribution built with Yocto Project 
tooling.

The Yocto Project is a project to help you create a distribution based 
on OpenEmbedded Core + some other things.

I think this is the most accurate description possible.

Philip
>
> Yocto is based on Poky; if it was not, it would need to create something
> just like Poky (the alternative would be asserting complete control over
> OE as a whole, not good I think). OE has benefited from the Poky effort
> over the last seven years, and it is a better ecosystem for it. At the
> same time, the OE systemd situation (a major system level change without
> adequate consideration of the upgrade path) suggests to me that the need
> for a sanitized OE-derivative remains.
>
> I shut up now. Really. Maybe. :-)
>
> (Perhaps I should add that I am not formally affiliated with the Yocto
> project in any way, my opinions are really my own, not someone else's or
> driven by a policy, I have a long history with Poky, so I am definitely
> biased in a particular way, I work with Poky on daily basis, and I
> tinker with Poky after hours.)
>
> Tomas
> _______________________________________________
> yocto mailing list
> yocto@yoctoproject.org
> https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto
>