Contact chromeos-scale-taskforce@google.com for questions.
ChromeOS device development typically begins with a Google-developed reference design. Partners then create unique implementations from that reference, which we refer to as “variants”.
new_variant.py uses the shell scripts in its same directory, plus some additional programs in private repositories, to automate the process of creating the firmware source code for a new variant of an existing reference board.
The new variant is created as an exact copy of the reference board. After committing the code for the new variant, partners can customize the variant to their requirements by removing features which they do not want to offer (such as LTE), change parts (such as LPDDR3 memory instead of DDR4), or add other differentiating features.
For any commands that you are instructed to run, the shell prompt is shown as (cr) $ for commands that run inside the chroot, and $ for commands that must run outside the chroot.
Output text in some cases may be summarized with [... and ...] containing a brief explanation of what is happening and what messages will be displayed on the screen, rather than copying all of the output.
For any board that uses an Intel SoC, you must have the appropriate FIT tools installed, as well as Wine (sudo apt-get install wine) to run the FIT tools. Obtain the FIT tools directly from Intel's Resource & Design Center
Please ensure that you have successfully synced your tree, and that your toolchain is up-to-date:
$ cd ~/chromiumos $ cros_sdk -- bash -c "repo sync && ./update_chroot"
new_variant.py must run inside the ChromeOS chroot environment.
A bug number to track the creation of the firmware for the new variant, e.g. b/133181366 to create the Kindred variant of Hatch.
The tutorials cover the process of creating the firmware for a new variant of a reference board. There are examples for Hatch, Volteer, Dedede, Zork, and Puff.
new_variant.py keeps track of its state inside the chroot in the user's home directory. The state is stored in a file named .new_variant.yaml. The --continue option uses the state to continue the creation of the new variant.
If you want to abort the creation of the new variant, use the --abort flag, e.g. ./new_variant.py --abort. All of the branches and commits that were created on your local disk for the new variant will be abandoned and deleted, and the stored state (.new_variant.yaml) will be cleaned up.
Any CLs that have been uploaded will continue to exist on the gerrit servers; make sure to abandon the CLs using the gerrit interface.