Difference between Mer and Yocto ?
 

Hello,

In these difficult times, I have seen a call to help funding the mer infrastructure (https://twitter.com/locusf/status/668409070643257344).

At the same time, I have seen a comment on a blog, stating that developing mer is redondant with what Yocto provides (Linux, Wayland, Qt, ...), but with Yocto supported by the linux foundation and industrial companies.

* I never thought of it that way, but indeed, what is the difference between Mer and Yocto ?
* What does Mer provides that Yocto doesn't ?
* Is that only a schedule consequence that Yocto didn't exist or was not as supported as it is now, when Mer was chosen/started ?
* Isn't it too late to rebase Sailfish OS on top of Yocto ? The hardware adaptation layer would need a lot of work propably for the Jolla, but the upper stack (Nemo, Silica and other sailfish OS packages) shouldn't need that much changes than writing new bitbake recipes, isn't it ?
* Would switching to Yocto make it faster to port it to future hardware, as a lot are supported now ? Maybe not as good support on multimedia models like Mediatek then industrial platforms like iMx6 and SAMA5 ?


Feel free to explain with technical details, I uses Yocto a bit at work, and tried porting Sailfish to xt897 using the HADK, so I should be able to follow (even if not being able to do it by myself...).

Thanks !

Re: Difference between Mer and Yocto ?
 

I just read a bit about Yocto and it doesn't seem to be in contradiction with Mer. As far as I understood, Yocto is project to provide an ecosystem which can help to create Linux distributions for the embedded world, not a distribution in itself. And Yocto targets embedded Linux, but not only mobile phones.

Mer is a distribution which targets mobile phones.

I would say with Yocto you can create Mer...which already exists. Didn't really see the added value in this particular case, but I didn't too long to read about Yocto.

Re: Difference between Mer and Yocto ?
 

I got the same thing from that, though Mer is not built with Yocto, and it could be a bit more flexible if it could be and perhaps save some cash. I couldn't tell if Yocto was for maintaining distributions or just creating them though.

Re: Difference between Mer and Yocto ?
 

IIRC, Linux Foundation was backing MeeGo (Which Mer continues), and is already backing Tizen. So, it seems that even Linux Foundation doesn't consider Yacto and Tizen/MeeGo the same product.

Re: Difference between Mer and Yocto ?
 

I'm going to sound boring here as I've mentioned this many times before, but still, it's pertinent to this thread so I'll say it again.

One significant difference is that Mer uses outdated, unmaintained and possibly vulnerable GPLv2 packages to allow vendors to Tivoise their devices.

Yocto provides recent, maintained GPLv3 packages for those that care about security, but they also provide unmaintained GPLv2 packages for those vendors that prefer Tivoisation to security.

Re: Difference between Mer and Yocto ?
 

It has been so for Meego (there was Nokia and Intel backing it), but doesn't seem to have follow with Mer. There is no mention of it in the projects of the foundations (where you can see Yocto and Tizen) :
http://collabprojects.linuxfoundatio...ative-projects

Re: Difference between Mer and Yocto ?
 

Otherwise, no one know the differences that would make Mer more meaningful than Yocto for its use case, and thus worth funding ?

Re: Difference between Mer and Yocto ?
 

Stop posting ******** please :D

Re: Difference between Mer and Yocto ?
 

Yes, it doesn't back Mer & I didn't mean it. I said that it backed Meego & is backing Tizen. & Mer is the continuation of Meego.

If Yacto is an alternative to Mer, it is probably an alternative to Tizen too (or at least Tizen can be based on it).

P.S. Actually, I has been thinking if bringing Nemo & hardware adaptation based on Fedora is viable! If I had enough time, I'd try to see how hard is it! IMHO, it'd be better if Nemo was built on top of an active distribution, so that contributors can focus on mobile specific things rather than the whole distribution. But I should admit that I don't know how much Mer is different from a regular distribution.

Re: Difference between Mer and Yocto ?
 

Could you please give some arguments?

Here, first line of the Mer web site:

Re: Difference between Mer and Yocto ?
 

Still no one to help ?

There are a lot of distributions out there, so it would be great to understand what Mer tries to do differently, how, and if it is still meaningful compared to other things that have come out since then.

Re: Difference between Mer and Yocto ?
 

In fact, the main difference between Mer and Yocto is the way that packages are compiled.

Mer use scratchbox2, an emulator (VirtualBox) build packages natively for the target architecture.

Yocto use a cross-compiler to do this.

Some times ago, many projects don't cross-compile "mainline", so, the way "scratchbox" was easier to build a complete system (for example, 6 years ago, Xorg is very difficult to cross-compile).

Today, there is many ARM devices, and cross-compilation for any open source projects, is an important feature... New build systems (cmake, qmake, qbs...) managed cross compile, for autotool, there is some restrictions, but, Yocto provide recipe for many project (in order to patch autotool to accept cross-compiler, for example, by avoid to use some .c compiled at configure step, and execute to anaylse device features, or test build result).

So, I think that today, scratchbox2 is not a good way to generate a system. Yocto is more powerfull, more flexible, more open to contribution... It's easier to build new package, or to contribute by proposing a new layer on github for example.
Today, we can find many project to build some "exotic" packages.
We can find a layer on github, to build owfs-server, or eibd; it is very difficult if I want to build it into mer project.

A month ago, I want to try the head version of VLC on the Jolla Tablet (VLC now support wayland), but, after some hours of work, I abandoned...
To create a recipe for VLC on Yocto, there is lesser work... And in addition, we can find some layer with this recipe on the web.

If maemo was create with scratchbox is, from my point of view, historical, could have been a good (best) choice when the project started (2005).

Today, Yocto (OpenEmbedded) is a better technologie, I think it is a shame that Jolla use scratchbox rather than Yocto.

Re: Difference between Mer and Yocto ?
 

Hello condo4,

Sorry, I missed your reply earlier...

Thanks for the insight. I understand better now what would be the reasons to use one or the other.

Too bad there is no work in the yocto direction then. This would probably be a huge work, but in the same time, not doing it will probably result in huge work in other areas (like you mention).

Re: Difference between Mer and Yocto ?
 

FWIW, i think the Glacier guys are investigating switching to Yocto/OpenEmbedded for their build process rather than the Mer toolchain.

Asteroid OS is similar and already uses OE with nemo/mer packages as well as updated recipies from Qt and such.