git checkout vs package

[sudar]

Because of the difference between git checkout vs package, we are having lot of issues. The latest ones are #147 #148 and #149. @sej7278 has been kind enough and has so far tried to fix most of them. But the more we fix it, the more we are breaking. It is like a can of worms.

I am partly responsible for this issue. When I took over the project last year, I wasn't fully aware of the user base through package and made lot of changes that broke the packaging. In retrospect, I should had been a little more careful. My sincere apologies for that.

I want to fix this issue once for all and remove all git checkout vs package difference, so that we don't want to spend time debugging this issue again and again. I am even fine if this breaks certain things in git checkout but I don't want to break anything for package users.

If my understanding is correct, then I guess the bulk of the issue is because we have the *.mk files inside the arduino-mk directory. Does moving all the *.mk files to the root directory will fix it? Are there any other things which is causing the package to break?

@sej7278, @maqifrnswa let me know your thoughts. Thanks.

[sej7278]

we could move the *.mk files into the root in git or add arduino-mk to the package, users would have to change their makefiles but its a do once thing.

but there's also the problem of where ard-reset-arduino is - in the package it will be in the $PATH, but in git its in the bin directory one level up from the makefiles, or could be overridden by setting RESET_CMD or ARDMK_PATH, we could just say that the user has to install it to their $PATH and not use it from arduino-mk/../bin/

chipkit stomping all over the variables doesn't help

[sudar]

@sej7278 Thanks for the thoughts.

we could move the *.mk files into the root in git or add arduino-mk to the package, users would have to change their makefiles but its a do once thing.

Let's remove the arduino-mk directory and move all *.mk files to the root. The users who install through package need not change anything, but people who use git checkout need to change it once. Created #150

but there's also the problem of where ard-reset-arduino is - in the package it will be in the $PATH, but in git its in the bin directory one level up from the makefiles, or could be overridden by setting RESET_CMD or ARDMK_PATH, we could just say that the user has to install it to their $PATH and not use it from arduino-mk/../bin/

For people who are using package, we can pick it up from $PATH.

For people who are using git checkout, they will be setting ARDMK_PATH anyway, to specify where they have checked. So let's use ARDMK_PATH. Asking them to move the perl file after checking out may not work.

chipkit stomping all over the variables doesn't help

Yes, this is the next problem we have to track, but we need help from @peplin

[sej7278]

ok, i'm trying a new branch now, i'll keep ARDMK_PATH (and fix lowercase)

[sudar]

@sej7278 Thanks :)

[sej7278]

actually we don't need ARDMK_PATH as we can use ARDMK_DIR/bin if we're moving the *.mk to root (or shell which) or do we want people to be able to override that?

[sudar]

actually we don't need ARDMK_PATH as we can use ARDMK_DIR/bin if we're moving the *.mk to root (or shell which) or do we want people to be able to override that?

I think we can get rid of ARDMK_PATH as well. For people using git checkout we can get path to perl file from ARDMK_DIR/bin. If they want to override it then they can override RESET_CMD.

For package users, we can get it by checking their $PATH

[maqifrnswa]

Thanks for looking into this. Being able to have identical packages and upstream code is ideal, but many times it is too difficult (or Debian policy rules that must be followed) - that's why Debian ends up having patches.
Thanks for putting in the effort of bring those too in line with each other! All these ideas look good.

[sej7278]

@maqifrnswa i don't think patches are going to fix this, and its not just a debian issue, we'd have the same on fedora too as we'd end up with odd paths like /usr/share/arduino-mk/bin which we'd have to symlink etc. it wasn't as noticeable when we only had one makefile, we should have addressed it when we added chipkit.

hopefully attempt 3 will fix it all - i've actually been using it all day whilst trying to get a MOSFET to work off 3.3v logic!

p.s. if this does get merged in, debian package and debian directory are here