[LEDE-DEV] Adding a extroot-ready firmware image to download repositories

[Alberto Bursi]

On 10/11/2016 04:48 PM, Alberto Bursi wrote:
> I'm currently editing the wiki to add stuff, I'm on the extroot page.
>
> The extroot tutorial is 100% easy to follow also for newbies, the big
> issue is that for devices with 4 MiB storage space you can't install the
> packages needed and there is no pre-made image with the tools to do it.
>
> So they need to have a linux system or make a VM to install the image
> generator, and learn how to use it to generate a extroot-friendly image.
> (not that it is hard, but for most people it's much more time lost to
> get the device set up)
>
> Also, having additional firmware images with the tools inside already
> would be cool for everyone.
>
> Would it be possible to tell the buildbots to make a variant of the
> flashable images for extroot use for all eligible devices (storage < 4
> MiB and usb/sata/sdcard)?
>
> For the sake of clarity, these are the packages needed by one of such
> devices to be able to extroot (I think most devices have the
> usb/sata/sdcard packages pre-selected in their own profile, so that
> should not be required).
>
> blkid block-mount kmod-fs-ext4
>

Silly me, it needs also kmod-usb-storage.

And also e2fsprogs package to be able to reformat the storage on its own.

I've tried building an image for WP543_4M (a device with 4MiB storage) 
and the images are too large (no flashable image is generated).
If someone split mke2fs and the filesystem checker from that it might fit.

With these packages (f2fs filesystem and tools) it builds an image 
successfully:

blkid block-mount kmod-fs-f2fs kmod-usb-storage mkf2fs f2fsck

-Alberto