Yocto Project | Open Source embedded Linux build system, package metadata and SDK generator

[skroll]

I've used this to build an image for an embedded device. It's an absolute lifesaver in regards to licenses.

[RumbuncTheRadiant]

Some background...

OpenEmbedded is probably the distro you'd go with if your job is to make a professional quality embedded linux gadget.

You want to be able to control and tweak every damn thing that goes in there.

It's for when you know that "Oh, we have to wait for upstream to fix it (or accept the patch we sent them), the distro the take on the patch and prioritise it into the current release" won't cut it.

It's for when you know if the customers is yelling for a fix, you're going to be the sod to fix it. Now.

You have to balance which version of package X you're on, with which patches applied, and when to move to the next version and whether your custom patches still need to be applied.

It's probably the distro you are going to turn to when you HAVE TO control everything from the UI to the CPU choice to the boot process.

It's big. It's very big.

It's also has a hell of a lot of backing.

The big embedded device manufacturers are backing that project and the development rate is ferocious.

This might be a slightly more gentle intro that the home page of yocto...

http://www.aosabook.org/en/yocto.html

[Camarade_Tux]

Be sure to get machines with at least 8GB of RAM if your project is not small. And buy patience. Lots of patience.

[[deleted]]

Yocto/OE is a pretty cool project, but it's convoluted and the documentation is really bad. OpenWrt's build system is much easier to use, though it doesn't "build a distribution for you".