Config-driven package selection

[alexs-sh]

Hello,

I’m working on integrating uutils/coreutils into Buildroot tools [1]. Since Buildroot is designed to generate images for embedded devices, it’s often useful to control the number of apps included in the images. For example, utilities like cp or mv are mandatory, while dircolors or factor are not.

To address this, solutions like BusyBox provide configuration files that allow control over each app, while keeping higher-level build system configurations clean at the same time.

So, my question is: does uutils have — or plan to have — this kind of configuration?

Here are some of my observations and notes on the topic. Please correct me if I’m wrong or if I overlooked something:

1. I found that the list of packages can be configured via the PROGS variable in the GNUmakefile. Technically, it’s possible to populate PROGS from config-like files. However, I encountered issues during cross-compilation using Buildroot and the GNUMakefile. Moreover, since Buildroot officially supports Cargo packages, using Cargo seems to be the preferred approach over make.

2. With Cargo, cross-compilation worked well. I was also able to configure the list of packages using the -p argument directly in the Buildroot makefile. However, I would still like to keep the list of packages outside the makefile to allow switching configurations via Buildroot parameters without modifying the makefile itself. I’m sure this can be solved solely on the Buildroot side, but that would mean each non-Buildroot build system would have to reimplement configuration files on their own, which seems undesirable.

At this point, I’d mainly like to hear and understand the opinions of the uutils/coreutils developers and community regarding the need for configuration files and possible ways to implement them. This is not a call to action or a problem report — I just want to explore how to integrate these two great tools smoothly, with minimal friction.

Thank you

Links
[1] - Buildroot thread: https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/buildroot/patch/[email protected]/