All, I am looking at Yocto as a replacement for our embedded distribution. Currently we build everything as a distribution. This includes building the Linux kernel, open source packages, as well as our own IP and applications.
As you can imagine, a vast majority of our build is taken up by repeatedly building distribution components and not our actual IP, which is a majority of what changes day to day. In moving to Yocto, my first plan was to create all the necessary layers and separate out what changes from what doesn't (in fact much of what doesn't change is already included in Yocto or the many freely-available layers online). However, this would still require application developers to have to learn and use Yocto to build the entire distribution. Ideally, I'd like to separate the applications from the main build, so that application developers have to learn less about Yocto, and more importantly, save on build time when they make their changes. I am exploring exactly how I can use the available SDK options as a solution. If I create an image with the base distribution and required applications, I'm wondering if I can create a separate tree for the application developers. They would then build that entire tree with the yocto SDK. I haven't quite figured out yet how I can then integrate their applications into the Yocto image, and prepare it for deployment. I'm also unclear how we can define new dependencies if the base distribution is pre-built. For example, if we introduce a new dependency (our custom application now requires zlib, for example), it doesn't seem for there to be a way to then ensure zlib is built into the final image with the SDK option. Unfortunately, we can't build the distribution and then install the applications directly onto the target. Based on how our codebase is currently designed, it requires a fully-complete image to be installed on the target as a whole, and not piecemeal. This is why I need to integrate on the host/build environment first before we create the deployable image. Can anyone share any workflows that they use that may fit with what we need? In the mean time I am continuing to play with Yocto and the SDK to see what else I can come up with. Thanks all for your time. -- _______________________________________________ yocto mailing list yocto@yoctoproject.org https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto