Embedded Linux for Developers

Debugging the build system

In the last recipe of this chapter, we will explore the different methods available to debug problems with the build system and its metadata.

Getting ready

Let's first introduce some of the usual use cases on a debugging session.

Finding recipes

A good way to check whether a specific package is supported in your current layers is to search for it as follows:

$ find -name "*busybox*"

This will recursively search all layers for the BusyBox pattern. You can limit the search to recipes and append files by executing:

$ find -name "*busybox*.bb*"

Dumping BitBake's environment

When developing or debugging package or image recipes, it is very common to ask BitBake to list its environment both globally and for a specific target, be ...