Improve packaging of Device Tree Patches and Overlays

I think packaging the overlays as plain text in a folder instead of as patches is the straightest possible path. Copy them from the overlay source folder into the kernel tree location and let it compile.

I’d like to voice my support for this. I’m a fairly new Armbian user (but long-time developer) and have recently tried to figure out the devicetrees for a board (to find out which UARTS were enabled and mapped to which pins), but it took quite some effort to figure out where they lived, and once I found them, grepping through patches wasn’t particularly easy either…

So from a user perspective, just having a flat directory with full devicetree files as they are used would be a lot easier. However, I can imagine that the current patch-based structure does have some advantages for devicetrees that are already included in the upstream kernel and require only small changes. Storing a patch file probably makes it easier to upgrade the kernel version and/or port changes between kernel versions.

But maybe this can also be done with some tooling that just generates the patch file from the full file when needed or something like that? Alternatively, I can also imagine that, rather than modifying the devicetree files themselves, using a new devicetree file for a board that includes the original devicetree and makes some changes through that mechanism (similar to how a board file typically includes a file for the processor). I’m not entirely sure if this is actually possible without restructuring the board dts file as a dtsi file, though.

I'm glad to help... i just lack the vision... we can work on a branch..... together

My shell scripting is weak, but since no one else seems to [edited] care [end edit] about this mess I'll make an attempt. Be prepared for blood. 😆

Im not! I take you so seriously that i created this epic 4 months ago