Mastering Embedded Linux Programming - Third Edition

Chapter 6: Selecting a Build System

In the preceding chapters, we covered the four elements of embedded Linux and showed you, step by step, how to build a toolchain, a bootloader, a kernel, and a root filesystem, before combining them into a basic embedded Linux system. And there are a lot of steps! Now, it is time to look at ways to simplify this process by automating it as much as possible. We will look at how embedded build systems can help and look at two of them in particular: Buildroot and the Yocto Project. Both are complex and flexible tools, and it would require an entire book to describe how they work in full. In this chapter, I only want to show you the general ideas behind build systems. I will show you how to build a simple device ...