System building tools

• Different tools are available to automate the process of building a target system, including the kernel, and sometimes the toolchain.
• They automatically download, configure, compile and install all the components in the right order, sometimes after applying patches to fix cross-compiling issues.
• They already contain a large number of packages, that should fit your main requirements, and are easily extensible.
• The build becomes reproducible, which allows to easily change the configuration of some components, upgrade them, fix bugs, etc.

Available system building tools

Large choice of tools

• Buildroot, developed by the community http://www.buildroot.net See our dedicated course and training materials: http://freeelectrons.com/training/buildroot/
• PTXdist, developed by Pengutronix http://pengutronix.de/software/ptxdist/
• OpenWRT, originally a fork of Buildroot for wireless routers, now a more generic project http://www.openwrt.org
• LTIB. Good support for Freescale boards, but small community http://ltib.org/
• OpenEmbedded, more flexible but also far more complicated http://www.openembedded.org, its industrialized version Yocto Project and vendor-specific derivatives such as Arago. See our dedicated course and training materials: http://free-electrons.com/training/yocto/.
• Vendor specific tools (silicon vendor or embedded Linux vendor)