Custom DTS / DTB building with ImageBuilder

[Joseph Mullally]

Hi,

Device Tree is great as it decouples the hardware layout from the
kernel build. What are peoples thoughts on supporting custom DTS
building in ImageBuilder? There are a few advantages: Uses the
official kernel, makes it easier to support out-of-tree unofficial
firmwares etc. [1] says DTS files were rebuilt in Chaos Calmer Image
Builder?

As an example: https://github.com/jwmullally/openwrt_wpa8630p_v2_fullmem

As you can see from the Makefile, most of the tools are already
included in ImageBuilder except for cpp and some DTS headers from the
kernel (ignore the tplink-firmware.c patching as its unavoidable).
There are some clunky parts there, like needing to manually assemble
the "-kernel.bin" instead of using the OpenWRT Makefile definitions.
Does anyone know how to do that? I got close using "make -C
target/linux/ath79/image install" with "IB" undefined, but I wasn't
able to narrow it down enough to build just one DTB + image for a
single profile. That would probably solve most of the issue and make
these out-of-tree builds much simpler.

Other examples from the forums:
[1] https://forum.openwrt.org/t/dts-support-in-imagebuilder/12320
[2] https://forum.openwrt.org/t/ath79-dtb-update-mechanism/52630
[3] https://forum.openwrt.org/t/using-release-ath79-19-07-0-kernel-and-packages-on-hardware-modded-tp-link-wr703n-16mb-64mb-without-snapshot-compilation/54310

Thanks
- Joe