OpenEmbedded

OpenEmbedded
Developer(s) 75+ developers[1]
Development status Active
Operating system Linux
Platform Cross-platform
Type Build automation
License MIT
Website www.openembedded.org

OpenEmbedded is a software framework used for creating Linux distributions aimed for, but not restricted to, embedded devices. The build system is based on BitBake recipes,[2] which behave like Gentoo Linux ebuilds.

Recipes in the old OpenEmbedded-Classic were all found in one place. In the new OpenEmbedded-Core, the structure has changed into meta layers[3][4] to make adding custom recipes easier.

OpenEmbedded can be installed and automatically updated via Git.[2]

History

The OpenEmbedded Project (OE for short, but mostly called OE-dev, following the name of the mailing list[5]) was created by Chris Larson, Michael Lauer, and Holger Schurig, merging the achievements of OpenZaurus with contributions from projects like Familiar Linux and OpenSIMpad into a common codebase. OpenEmbedded superseded these projects and was used to build any of them from the same code base. Stable maintenance builds exist for the old OpenEmbedded-Classic,[6] although most development is, or will be, based on the new OpenEmbedded-Core in the future.

The OpenEmbedded-Core Project (OE-Core for short) resulted from the merge of the Yocto Project with OpenEmbedded.[7] This is the most recent version of OpenEmbedded and many of the OE-dev recipes are available in OE-Core. Newer versions of package recipes may only get ported for OpenEmbedded-Core.

Layer organisation

OpenEmbedded-Core has adapted this layered structure in the merge with Yocto and new layer entries were added over time.[3][4] The Layers represent a structure which is only of declarative nature. The specific entries are stricter in the scope of deciding which entry provides which packages. Overview of layers is available in: layers.openembedded.org/layerindex/branch/master/layers/

Developer layer
The user-defined layer for custom Bitbake recipes. Embedded system software developers would place their recipe here if the software would not fit the commercial or base layer.
Commercial layer
Packages, plugins and configurations from open source vendors go in this layer.
UI-specific layer
Layers currently present within the meta-openembedded layer:
  • meta-efl (Enlightenment window manager)
  • meta-gnome (GNOME window manager)
  • meta-gpe (GPE window manager)
  • meta-xfce (Xfce window manager)
Hardware-specific layer
Yocto layer
  • meta-yocto (Yocto Project layer[3][7])
OpenEmbedded-Core layer
  • openembedded-core
  • meta-openembedded

Distributions supported

In OpenEmbedded-Classic, the configurations from Base- to the UI-Layer can be supplemented by various Linux distributions. The following list is available for OpenEmbedded:

Supported hardware

Various devices are supported:[10]

Boards and processors
The BeagleBoard from Texas Instruments, the Gumstix,[11][12] Nvidia Tegra and several I.MX devices (e.g. I.MX28 series)[13] from Freescale Semiconductor are supported.
Other well known boards like the PandaBoard are also supported.[14][15] along with other hardware.
Some devices of the IBM PowerPC series are supported by OpenEmbedded.[16]
Smartphones
Smartphones like the Nokia N800 and Neo FreeRunner are supported.
Porting to new hardware
The constellation of OpenEmbedded, especially the open design, allows it to get OpenEmbedded to adapt new hardware fairly easy.[17][18]

See also

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/27/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.