[LinuxBIOS] abuild and Config.lb

[Stefan Reinauer]

breaking the thread.

* Richard Smith  [061121 17:37]:
> 0x16000 is what abuild is using. It can probably be smaller.  In fact a
> good exercise for the reader is to find out how small it can be and
> still contain a FILO payload.
>
> Stefan:
>
> Why is abuild preferring to use its own custom Config.lb rather than the
>  Config.lb that is in the target directory?

Back when I started it, the custom Config.lb in the target directory
contained a lot of build specific stuff like

payload ../../../../../../../somewhere/thisandthatpayload.elf

which I assumed people needed to build and use LinuxBIOS in their 
environments.

Also, these Config.lbs are all very different. Some are very verbose,
some are completely silent.

The idea was to create a config that is as simple as possible and the
same for all boards.

Since this is not possible, I started out using Config-abuild.lb on
those boards that would not work with a "default configuration".

What I do nowadays is replace the path to the payload while building the
images (using /dev/null if no real payload is used). In the Config.lb
file you just see

payload PAYLOAD

Ideally we could put Config-abuild.lb files in place for every
mainboard. I could also make abuild automatically download payloads if 
no others are found in place, so it always builds with real payloads.

When I started building all qa.linuxbios.org images with real payloads,
half the boards broke, since they would not leave any room in the images
for a payload at all. To work around a mess I started using compression
in abuild every time a real payload is used. We should indeed make that
an option to abuild.

Stefan