5.12.3. Handling a Package Name Alias

Sometimes a package name you are using might exist under an alias or as a similarly named package in a different distribution. The OpenEmbedded build system implements a do_distro_check task that automatically connects to major distributions and checks for these situations. If the package exists under a different name in a different distribution, you get a distro_check mismatch. You can resolve this problem by defining a per-distro recipe name alias using the DISTRO_PN_ALIAS variable.

Following is an example that shows how you specify the DISTRO_PN_ALIAS variable:

     DISTRO_PN_ALIAS_pn-PACKAGENAME = "distro1=package_name_alias1 \
                                       distro2=package_name_alias2 \
                                       distro3=package_name_alias3 \
                                       ..."
                

If you have more than one distribution alias, separate them with a space. Note that the build system currently automatically checks the Fedora, OpenSUSE, Debian, Ubuntu, and Mandriva distributions for source package recipes without having to specify them using the DISTRO_PN_ALIAS variable. For example, the following command generates a report that lists the Linux distributions that include the sources for each of the recipes.

     $ bitbake world -f -c distro_check
                

The results are stored in the build/tmp/log/distro_check-${DATETIME}.results file found in the Source Directory.