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| -rw-r--r-- | tools/buildman/README | 92 |
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diff --git a/tools/buildman/README b/tools/buildman/README index a5d181cee9..1c919aff09 100644 --- a/tools/buildman/README +++ b/tools/buildman/README @@ -3,6 +3,8 @@ # SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+ # +(Please read 'How to change from MAKEALL' if you are used to that tool) + What is this? ============= @@ -663,6 +665,96 @@ Other options Buildman has various other command line options. Try --help to see them. +How to change from MAKEALL +========================== + +Buildman includes most of the features of MAKEALL and is generally faster +and easier to use. In particular it builds entire branches: if a particular +commit introduces an error in a particular board, buildman can easily show +you this, even if a later commit fixes that error. + +The reasons to deprecate MAKEALL are: +- We don't want to maintain two build systems +- Buildman is typically faster +- Buildman has a lot more features + +But still, many people will be sad to lose MAKEALL. If you are used to +MAKEALL, here are a few pointers. + +First you need to set up your tool chains - see the 'Setting up' section +for details. Once you have your required toolchain(s) detected then you are +ready to go. + +Buildman works on entire branches, so the normal use is: + + ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch_name> <list of things to build> + +followed by (afterwards, or perhaps concurrently in another terminal): + + ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch_name> -s <list of things to build> + +to see the results of the build. Rather than showing you all the output, +buildman just shows a summary, with red indicating that a commit introduced +an error and green indicating that a commit fixed an error. Use the -e +flag to see the full errors. + +You don't need to stick around on that branch while buildman is running. It +checks out its own copy of the source code, so you can change branches, +add commits, etc. without affecting the build in progress. + +The <list of things to build> can include board names, architectures or the +like. There are no flags to disambiguate since ambiguities are rare. Using +the examples from MAKEALL: + +Examples: + - build all Power Architecture boards: + MAKEALL -a powerpc + MAKEALL --arch powerpc + MAKEALL powerpc + ** buildman -b <branch> powerpc + - build all PowerPC boards manufactured by vendor "esd": + MAKEALL -a powerpc -v esd + ** buildman -b <branch> esd + - build all PowerPC boards manufactured either by "keymile" or "siemens": + MAKEALL -a powerpc -v keymile -v siemens + ** buildman -b <branch> keymile siemens + - build all Freescale boards with MPC83xx CPUs, plus all 4xx boards: + MAKEALL -c mpc83xx -v freescale 4xx + ** buildman -b <branch> mpc83xx freescale 4xx + +Buildman automatically tries to use all the CPUs in your machine. If you +are building a lot of boards it will use one thread for every CPU core +it detects in your machine. This is like MAKEALL's BUILD_NBUILDS option. +You can use the -T flag to change the number of threads. If you are only +building a few boards, buildman will automatically run make with the -j +flag to increase the number of concurrent make tasks. It isn't normally +that helpful to fiddle with this option, but if you use the BUILD_NCPUS +option in MAKEALL then -j is the equivalent in buildman. + +Buildman puts its output in ../<branch_name> by default but you can change +this with the -o option. Buildman normally does out-of-tree builds: use -i +to disable that if you really want to. But be careful that once you have +used -i you pollute buildman's copies of the source tree, and you will need +to remove the build directory (normally ../<branch_name>) to run buildman +in normal mode (without -i). + +Buildman doesn't keep the output result normally, but use the -k option to +do this. + +Please read 'Theory of Operation' a few times as it will make a lot of +things clearer. + +Some options you might like are: + + -B shows which functions are growing/shrinking in which commit - great + for finding code bloat. + -S shows image sizes for each commit (just an overall summary) + -u shows boards that you haven't built yet + --step 0 will build just the upstream commit and the last commit of your + branch. This is often a quick sanity check that your branch doesn't + break anything. But note this does not check bisectability! + + TODO ==== |