Assuming, as I do, that an installed (and used in the current boot) overlay is what that’s supposed to report. If that’s not what’s intended, what is?
Active overlays are for dynamically enabled overlays using configfs. Once an overlay is “merged”, it becomes the new base device tree. There’s no way for a tool to figure out is a certain overlay is in a device tree or not. This is documented in the wiring tool.
Whatever “in the wiring tool” means, as ldto doesn’t seem to have any self-help other than the simple list of commands, just like the brief mention in the wiring tool’s github README (but without even the sketchy descriptions in the latter).
The feature listed as under development, to apply raspbian’s config.txt, might be a step in the right direction, though I’d be more comfortable with a mechanism like Beagle’s uEnv.txt, which does the DT munging before the kernel boots - less chance of races, I would think, if my assumption that this would be run during the OS boot.
Overlays are a vital part of the system config, and I hate config that’s hidden.
See Libre Computer Wiring Tool
Hacking u-boot environment is more confusing and risk prone than our design.
It’s not hidden. It’s open source…
Sorry, I was unclear. What gets hidden is the configuration of overlays that have been installed when you come back months later and wish to duplicate a configuration.
We’ll have to agree to not entirely agree about which is less confusing, at least for some use cases. Certainly your approach is great for casual users, at least as long as there’s already an overlay for the configuration they want.
If you would like to duplicate the configuration, just copy the dtb file over to the other OS image.
Uhm, no, that doesn’t help if one is developing overlays. I expressed that earlier thought incompletely, ought to have said “duplicate with changes”. And that doesn’t touch developing an overlay, or… No, we just disagree about this.
Everything is written in bash and it’s open source. Feel free to modify the setup if you think there’s a better way.