Shared Embedded Linux Distribution

This page describes the CE Workgroup "Shared Embedded Linux Distribution" project
 * This is a project to use Debian packages with the Yocto Project
 * Goal is to share the work of maintaining long-term support for an embedded distribution, by leveraging the work of the Debian project
 * See [[Media:Poky_meets_Debian_Understanding_How_to_Make_an_Embedded_Linux_by_Using_an_Existing_Distribution%27s_Source_Code.pdf|"Poky meets Debian: Understanding How to Make an Embedded Linux by Using an Existing Distribution's Source Code"]] talk at ELC 2015 by Yoshitake Kobayashi
 * See [[Media:Meta-debian handout r2.pdf|"Meta-debian handout"]] which was available at LinuxCon Japan 2015 CE Workgroup booth

Rationale
The meta-debian is a set of recipes (metadata) for the poky build system, which allows cross-building Linux images using Debian source packages. By enabling meta-debian, poky fetches required sources from Debian source repository and LTSI kernel repository.meta-debian is independent of OpenEmbedded-core recipes, so OE-Core recipes are still available after meta-debian is enabled. meta-debian is mainly intended to be used for embedded products which needs long-term support.

The purpose is to provide the following things The meta-debian recipes follow Debian build rules by default, but sometimes customize them for embedded systems if necessary (e.g. remove dependencies). Also they re-use essential patches from OE-Core to support cross-building
 * Fully customizable embedded Linux based on existed distro
 * Wide embedded CPU support
 * Stability and long-term support

Setup repositories
$ git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/poky.git $ cd poky $ git checkout daisy $ git clone https://github.com/meta-debian/meta-debian.git $ cd meta-debian $ git checkout daisy Please don't forget to install essential packages into your host system before you bitbake something. See Yocto Project's web site for this information

Setup build directory
$ export TEMPLATECONF=meta-debian/conf $ source ./poky/oe-init-build-env You can change the target machine by setting MACHINE variable in local.conf to one of the following machines.
 * qemux86, qemux86-64, qemuarm, qemuppc

Bitbake kernel and tiny rootfs
$ bitbake core-image-minimal

Run the build image on Qemu
Please run the following commands after bitbake core-image-minimal finishes. (qemux86) $ runqemu qemux86 nographic bootparams="init=/init root=/dev/sda"

(qemux86-64) $ runqemu qemux86-64 nographic bootparams="init=/init root=/dev/sda"

(qemuarm) $ runqemu qemuarm nographic bootparams="init=/init console=ttyAMA0"

(qemuppc) $ runqemu qemuppc nographic bootparams="init=/init" The shell prompt appears automatically after system boots without login. "init=/init" means that kernel uses tiny-init script as the init process instead of busybox /sbin/init.

Download

 * https://github.com/meta-debian/

Mailing list

 * meta-debian@googlegroups.com
 * Subscription
 * meta-debian+subscribe@googlegroups.com
 * https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/meta-debian/join

Presentations

 * [[Media:Poky_meets_Debian_Understanding_How_to_Make_an_Embedded_Linux_by_Using_an_Existing_Distribution%27s_Source_Code.pdf|"Poky meets Debian: Understanding How to Make an Embedded Linux by Using an Existing Distribution's Source Code"]] talk at ELC 2015 by Yoshitake Kobayashi
 * [[Media:LinuxCon2015 meta-debian r7.pdf|"meta-debian: Extending Yocto Project's Poky for building Debian-based embedded system"]] talk at LinuxCon Japan 2015 by Kazuhiro Hayashi