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"Welcome Guide" which was for
armbian-next
(#352)
* remove all references to Vagrant, as it is no longer supported * FEL boot is no more * format mkdocs.yml - no real changes * The Welcome Guide, or: blergh "What's New" back from `armbian-next`
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# Welcome to `armbian/build`, the Armbian build system | ||
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Welcome to the Armbian build system (`armbian/build`). | ||
The build system has significantly changed since release 23.02, when the `armbian-next` effort was merged into | ||
our `main` branch. | ||
Please expect some rough edges and report them to us. | ||
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## Errors, errors everywhere | ||
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Previously, when faced with an error, the build system would simply ignore them, hardly log them anywhere, and continue. | ||
This led to builds completing successfully, but with (sometimes very sneakily) broken packages and images. | ||
Get used to seeing errors stopping builds now. Inspect the whole log, specially the errors, the last few lines, and the | ||
stack trace. | ||
We try, as much as possible given Bash limitations, to show the source of the error, with a "stack trace" of sorts. | ||
The topmost elements of the stack trace are usually the most relevant. Each line is prefixed with the file and line | ||
number where the error occurred. | ||
Open the file and go to the line number to see the source of the error. Most times, this simple inspection is enough to | ||
understand the error. | ||
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### (ANSI) Logging | ||
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Logging is a bit more structured now. Logs are output to `output/logs`, in a few different formats. | ||
We output ANSI color both to the screen and to the logs. | ||
_Please_ add `SHARE_LOG=yes` to share your logs with us when reporting issues, that allows us to check the logs on a web | ||
browser and keep to correct formatting. | ||
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## Command line syntax has changed | ||
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General CLI syntax: `./compile.sh PARAM=value OTHER_PARAM=other_value [<configfile> <configfile> ...] [<command>]` | ||
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- where `command` defaults to `build` if you don't specify it; could also be `kernel-config` or `u-boot` etc | ||
- you _can't_ have a config file with the same name as a possible `<command>` (system will check & bomb if so) | ||
- also: there's no more `default` config -- you have to be explicit | ||
- also: there's no more `docker` config -- Docker is fully auto-managed now. The system will complain if you have one. | ||
- you can specify `PARAM=value`, `<configfile>` or `<command>` in _any order_ | ||
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## No more `config-default.conf`, you need to specify the config file in the command line | ||
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- No "default" config is auto-loaded anymore. Default config lead to unreproducible failing builds and was a source of | ||
confusion. | ||
- The configs still go to the same place, `userpatches/config-xyz.conf` -- but now you gotta tell the build system to | ||
use that config, like `./compile.sh BOARD=xxx xyz`; otherwise works the same. | ||
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## Artifacts, cache, what the ...? | ||
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The `armbian/build` system is currently undergoing refactoring to improve its structure. Previously, the build system | ||
was a single, complex Bash script that mixed the building of `.deb` packages with the creation of images. | ||
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This was reworked into a `1-to-N` image-to-artifact dependency tree; a certain image build will depend on N possible | ||
"artifacts". Artifacts are either `.deb` packages, a `.tar` of multiple `.deb` packages, or a `rootfs.tar.zstd`. Each | ||
artifact can be individually built, and has a specific name and a _version_. | ||
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Each artifact is also now **cached by default** using OCI storage at ghcr.io (GitHub Container Registry). To achieve | ||
_consistent caching_, each artifact produces a version that includes _hashes_ of its composing files, variables, | ||
patches, | ||
hooks, external git SHA1 references, etc. That way we can consistently check the remote OCI cache for previously-built | ||
artifacts, and possibly save image builders from having to build heavy packages just to produce an image. | ||
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### TL-DR about artifacts and caching: | ||
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- `KERNEL_ONLY=yes` and `KERNEL_ONLY=no` are no more. Use the `kernel` CLI command instead. | ||
- `ARTIFACT_IGNORE_CACHE=yes` can help if you're getting false positives. Please also report the problem, with a | ||
complete logfile. | ||
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## Automatic Docker/sudo launcher | ||
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- `compile.sh` will prefer to use Docker if it detects Docker is installed and working. | ||
- This handles Docker Desktop and Rancher Desktop (in Docker emulation mode) under macOS/Darwin, including Apple | ||
M1/M2. | ||
- You **don't need and actually can't have the old docker config file**. | ||
- If Docker is not installed, it will try to use `sudo` to run the build as root. | ||
- If you run directly as root, it will warn you and ask you to run it without sudo. | ||
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## Kernel Git Trees: shallow vs full | ||
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During the build, depending on which local or remote caches are hit, it might be needed to build the Linux Kernel. | ||
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The kernel's git repo is huge. Most build systems resort to fetching "shallow" trees directly from upstream git servers, | ||
to save bandwidth. Unfortunately that creates immense extra CPU load on the git servers. To avoid this problem, | ||
Armbian produces daily automated git tree exports cached in ghcr.io OCI repositories, and only uses `git fetch` to | ||
update the relatively small new changes from the upstream git server. | ||
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There are two types of cached Kernel git trees: | ||
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- `full` is a complete git tree, including all of Torvald's `master` and all of the currently-supported `stable` | ||
branches. | ||
- `full` is very large download and requires a lot of disk space. | ||
- `full` is more useful over time and when building multiple different kernels on the same machine, like for CI | ||
servers or developer workstations. | ||
- `shallow` is a shallow tree for a specific `stable` branch | ||
- `shallow` is a much smaller download and requires less disk space | ||
- `shallow` is appropriate for restricted devices like SBCs which will build a single kernel | ||
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**TL,DR: ** `KERNEL_GIT=full` or `KERNEL_GIT=shallow` or let the system decide for you. | ||
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## Consider Forking before cloning the repo | ||
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Before cloning the repo, consider forking it first. This will allow you to make changes and submit pull requests. | ||
You will need a GitHub account to do this; | ||
see [GitHub's documentation](https://docs.github.com/en/github/getting-started-with-github/fork-a-repo) for more | ||
information. | ||
If you fork, make sure to keep your fork up-to-date with the main repo, by rebasing your fork. | ||
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## Some really confusing stuff still remains | ||
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This is (by far) not a complete list: | ||
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- wifi/other kernel drivers are still using pre-armbian-next code, and are very hard to work with. it's not only the | ||
contents are a mess, the way the whole thing works leads to more and more compounding work. To make it worse, family | ||
patches sometimes need to patch driver code, leading to a cycle of sadness for developers. We're still coming up with | ||
a plan to completely replace this lest most of us go insane. | ||
- although "aggregation" has been rewritten in Python, it still mostly works using the legacy principle, by scanning | ||
directories and files in a very complex and error-prone way. This is a source of many bugs and confusion. We plan to | ||
replace this with pure extensions eventually. | ||
- "minimal" images are far from really minimal. It is common to see "extensions" that actually remove stuff put there | ||
by the core. Those should be refactored. | ||
- board-side scripts (armbian-config, firstrun, hwoptimization, etc) haven't really changed with armbian-next, and are | ||
in dire need of a rewrite. They're also a source of many bugs and confusion. They also need to be extensible. | ||
- we've mostly working Kernel headers (linux-headers pkg) for 5.10+ including some vendor kernels; no kernel-headers for | ||
4.x kernels. sorry. We've no plans to support this. | ||
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## Multiple u-boot's for same board | ||
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Hmm. This is an interesting problem. We can build u-boot twice, using `UBOOT_TARGET_MAP`. | ||
Some example I did in https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/main/config/boards/odroidhc4.conf#L15-L20 may help. | ||
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