(Third
send attempt today)
Martin,
Using
Update Manager to gather all the desired pieces and then zipping up everything
with a little last minute file tuning makes me kind of nervous. It
presumes that all of the necessary files reside below a common parent
directory. That may be true with Eclipse (I don’t know either way), but
my experience with Linux in general has been that
files get splattered all over the filesystem. If I zip everything, I am
trusting the procedure really will pick up all the files now, and in the
future.
If
I had to manually download a half-dozen zip files to assemble all the required
pieces, I really don’t mind, particularly if I could then create a simple
script to properly install them on a new developer workstation, downloading
from my own server repository or elsewhere.. The key objective is
repeatability and version integrity. (I know the developers will quickly
do their own updates and add plugins, so the machine will not long survive in a
pristine configuration; but at least I can provide a tested starting point, and
they can delete and start over to get back to a stable baseline when things go
wrong.)
This
is speculation on my part. So far, I have only used the integrated Update
Manager. But I see there are zip files for some of the pieces, so I may
experiment with that approach. Perhaps I am resisting too much and I
should just embrace Update Manager.
I
would say I am thinking more of a Howto than a FAQ. There is already a
tremendous amount of information on Eclipse out there, but it would be helpful
to have an Eclipse Embedded Howto that pulls it all together.
Perhaps
some aspiring Eclipse project lead will write an O’Reilly book ‘Embedded
Development with Eclipse’, and achieve fame and fortune. It the topic
does not stretch to book length, it might at least be a chapter in an O’Reilly
book such as the forthcoming second edition of ‘Building Embedded Linux
Systems’:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529680/index.html
By
the way, my interest in Eclipse is primarily to provide a GUI debugger for
gdb/gdbserver running on embedded Linux (ARM9 target). I see that Eclipse
is feature rich and offers a lot of file level project management, version
control integration, source browsing, etc. Those are all nice to have,
but most embedded developers I have worked with don’t get excited about that
kind of IDE integration. The killer app is the free GUI debugger.
The Howto I envision is a minimal getting started guide to get Eclipse/CDT and
the other embedded pieces working with just enough plugins added to be able to
GUI breakpoint and single-step a pthreads based hello world program running on
a development board. That is not trivial when you are new to Eclipse.
Thanks.
Jim
----- Original Message ----
From: "Oberhuber, Martin" <Martin.Oberhuber@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: General discussion of device software development platform issues.
<dsdp-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 9:46:59 AM
Subject: RE: [dsdp-dev] Single distribution tarball for Eclipse/CDT/DSDP/RSE
Hi Jim,
The "combined downloads" you meantion for CDT are created
by the Eclipse
Packaging Project (EPP). They kind of hand-pick the most widely requested
combinations to create starting packages. But that approach does
not scale
when people want more tuned collections of packages.
Yes, commercial vendors like Wind River and QNX make their pick of
plugins
and deliver an integrated environment. We cannot do that in open
source
because we don't know what exactly our clients need. That's where
the
Update Manager / Eclipse Discovery Site mechanism tunes in, which
is used
for Europa and Ganymede.
Start with the EPP CDT Package Download, then Help > SOftware Updates
> Find and Install > Europa Discovery Site. Select what you
think you need,
then "Select Required" to get all dependencies. Very much
like the Linux
packagers (like Yast, APT and the like).
More plugins can be acquired from Eclipse Plugin Central (EPC).
It currently doesn't go much simpler, though improvements to the
update
manager are underway as part of P2 (Provisioning Project, currently
part
of the Equinox incubator).
In terms of getting started and delivering your favorite pick of
plugins --
I suggest that you just install Eclipse locally, use Update Manager
to
get what you need, then ZIP up the entire local installation;
inside the
ZIP archive, remove the "configuration/" folder except
for the file
config.ini
What
you get is exactly a combined package of all the plugins you
downloaded, ready to deliver to your colleagues.
Does that help?
Is that the kind of information you'd like to see in an FAQ?
Cheers,
--
Martin Oberhuber
Wind River Systems, Inc.
Target Management Project Lead, DSDP PMC Member
http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/tm
From: dsdp-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:dsdp-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jim Thomas
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 6:27 PM
To: General discussion of device software development platform issues.
Subject: Re: [dsdp-dev] Single distribution tarball for
Eclipse/CDT/DSDP/RSE
You will
have to pardon me for being a rookie when it comes to Eclipse. I am just
getting started with it.
I see
what you mean about Europa and Ganymede providing checkpoints that nail down
version integrity.
I suppose
what I was hoping for was a merged up download including DSDP and RSE like
Eclipse/CDT at:
I see now
that with so many plugins, it isn't necessarily practical to anticipate some
universally desired combination, and mechanisms exist for users to add plugins
as wanted.
I imagine
vendors such as Wind River and QNX who use Eclipse/CDT in commercial offerings
will end up assembling the kind of package I envision, streamlined for embedded
developers. It would be nice if we had a free, generic package that does
the same, but that might be hard to do since it might assume a particular
target architecture or development board type and toolchain.
I see
that as an alternative to using the Eclipse hosted Software Updates mechanism
to install the DSDP and RSE plugins, there is also a way to download ZIP files
and (presumably) do a manual install. That approach might give me the
version integrity I seek, between annual releases such as Europa and Ganymede.
My objective is to have only a small set of tested files, and a minimal
installation procedure, that our embedded developers can use to bring up
identical Eclipse development platforms.
The
missing piece may be a simple 'getting started' guide that helps the Eclipse
novice get Eclipse/CDT, DSDP, and RSE up and running without so much web
searching to learn what those projects are, how they all tie together, and the
best way to assemble them (which I don't think I know yet). I suspect
each novice re-invents this wheel.
That
'getting started' guide may already exist, and I just haven't come across it
yet. I would think this rises to the level of an article at IBM
developerworks, O'Reilly, or one of the monthly Linux print magazines.
In any
event, Eclipse/CDT/DSDP/RSE looks great, and if the price of admission is a few
days of web searching to figure it all out, it is still well worth it.
----- Original Message ----
From: "Oberhuber, Martin" <Martin.Oberhuber@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: General discussion of device software development platform issues.
<dsdp-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 3:50:28 AM
Subject: RE: [dsdp-dev] Single distribution tarball for Eclipse/CDT/DSDP/RSE
Hello Jim,
The Eclipse "Europa" and "Ganymede" coordinated
release trains
seem to do what you want - simultaneous releases with version
integrity:
http://www.eclipse.org/projects/ganymede.php
You don't get a single tarball, but you can get Eclipse Platform
and then grab all the other projects from the Ganymede Update
Site in a single step.
Besides, I'm not sure what you mean with a "DSDP"
project?
Cheers,
--
Martin Oberhuber
Wind River Systems, Inc.
Target Management Project Lead, DSDP PMC Member
http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/tm
From: dsdp-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:dsdp-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jim Thomas
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2007 5:35 PM
To: dsdp-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [dsdp-dev] Single distribution tarball for Eclipse/CDT/DSDP/RSE
I
recently experimented with using Eclipse/CDT plus DSDP and RSE to cross-compile
and cross-debug from an x86 host running Fedora Core to an ARM9
embedded target.
It works
great, and I would like to consider using this combination in a production
environment. But installing the several plugins from CVS and carrying the
plugins around as part of my project gives me pause.
Are there
plans to roll up official versions of Eclipse, CDT, DSDP, and RSE, and release
them as a single, convenient distribution, like Eclipse/CDT?
If I
could save that single distribution tarball and install it at will, with
guaranteed version integrity, Eclipse/CDT/DSDP/RSE is rather compelling.
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