V0.19 and pwlconfig design notes...

[Ralph Stickley]

Hey,
Couldn't get time to do the e-mail thing today...I wrote another 500 or so
lines of script to get the pwl_default thing working.  Also split up the
script files some more, things are getting pretty clean now...

Now that I have started parameterizing the "default" stuff in pwlconfig, I've
gotten about 10 parameters.  This should come in handy somewhere down the
road...

BTW, I added the items I'm working on as "new features" in the source forge bug
tracking stuff.  I got some mail from source forge about the mail server not
being enabled...might have a link that needs fixing here to get source forge to
send bug announcements to your mail server.  Thats just a guess...

more...
--- Adi Linden <adi@adis.on.ca> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> > I downloaded the 0.19 source file today (pretty good response for downloads
> > from sourceforge...haven't tried your new ftp yet). Looks like a lot of
> stuff
> > in there..not sure what it all is though...
> 
> There are still duplicate sources in there. The originals and the
> extracted, modified, comiled ones for PWL. I only patched boa so far. I
> have to work throught the other ones too.
> 
> Still need to decide wether to do the tar thing or use rpm.
>

I like the tar thing for now. I maybe we could re-visit this after we figure
out what to do with the packages and ram disk stuff.
 
> > I started on the next release of pwlconfig.  I've integrated it so it can
> use
> > my "mkBootDevice" shell script, now I just have to add a few parameters to
> the
> > project.  So far I can only come up with a handfull of "project" specific
> > parameters, but I'm planning on a menu that will let you enter these items
> into
> > a "...projects/myproject/project.default" file. (you can manually edit it
> or
> > use the menus).  Adding more parameters anytime should be a breeze...
> > 
> > >From Main Menu->Manage project
> > "Project Device Type: DOC"
> > "Project Device Location: /dev/fla1"
> > "Project Mount Point: ./mnt"
> > "Boot Label: pwlboot"
> > "File System Compressed: no"
> > "Default source for custom files: /home/ralph/SRC"
> > "<suggestions ???>"
> > 
> > Cursor through these items and select them to change them.  Its a little
> > overhead (script coding) to provide an interactive menu, but it keeps all
> the
> > pwl stuff integrated in the pwlconfig script.  I think I'll keep these
> > functions in a small script, like "pwl_default", that gets called by
> pwlconfig
> > or from the command line.
> 
> So thi would allow for a configuration to be 'totally' configured with
> pwlconfig, where the projects files go, where the temp mount point is?
> 

Yep, added that one too..thanks...

> > I split out some of the utility functions to shorten the pwlconfig script
> and
> > also to share these between the scripts.  Small sharp tools and all that...
> 
> Good idea.
> 
> > After this release, I'll start on integrating the "build package"
> > scripts...then what ?? The compressed file system should be good challenge
> > too...almost forgot about that one...
> 
> Ok, of the main menu there should be a configuration section to set
> whatever parameter for the project. Another main section should be the
> package selection portion and extraction of these files to the configured
> mount point. The next major meu item should be about what to with the
> build filesystem, i.e. load a DOC or flash, create  a ramdisk, iso image,
> tar file, etc...   
> 

I'll look at your next e-mail to try to figure more of this out...


> > Probably need to start building a couple of default projects..once users
> > download the binaries, they should be able to download "router", "thin
> client"
> > and so on - maybe 5-10K each - or the "Project of the Month".  Since I
> haven't
> > gotten anything to work yet, I can't help here :-(  
> 
> Yup, I fried a DOC. Don't know how I did it, but if I boot my development
> system on the embedded box I get a kernel message 'cannot access
> /dev/fla...'. I tried using the dos tools to restore it to a DOS disk with
> the original boot sector. It tells me it is not a FFS device. I s there
> warranty on these???
>

I sent you an extra chip incase you wanted to play with that on IPIX...
 
> > Best thing to do is see if you can build one of your working projects just
> > using pwlconfig...that should be a good test :-)
> 
> Yup, planning on doing that with the dialin box. Also, plan on doing this
> for the satellite router as part of doing the documentation of how to
> build it. It's sometimes a pain to do docs and decide what knowledge the
> reader should have (in how much detail to go).
> 
> > BTW, I tried your generate_list script (after I noticed that my "include
> all"
> > wasn't working since there were no list files to include).  It kept killing
> my
> > xterm window...so, I played with it...(hacker mentality - not my code, it
> must
> > be tweaked!;-) and add a "--remove" function...and set it up to work from
> > either directory (Embedded_Build or Embedded_Build/scripts). I'll post it
> 
> Good stuff, I am considering myself a beginner when it comes to perl and
> shell scripts. I think bacause I didn't formally learn it I missing some
> basics but at the same time know a lot of adavanced stuff because of all
> the other programming stuff I did. I am still having a bit of a hard time
> with having the script determine how it was invoked and where it live.
> 
> The `pwd` command would give you the location from where the script was
> started. The '$0' variable includes the path and script name to get to the
> script from the 'pwd' location. Maybe using these 2 it would be possible
> to jump to predefined starting point?
>
or you can look in the current directory to see if the script is there or in
another directory...depends on what you want to do.
 
> TTYL,
> Adi
> 
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> See the PWL homepage at  http://embedded.adis.on.ca
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