OpenEmbedded is a build automation framework and cross-compile environment used to create Linux distributions for embedded devices. The OpenEmbedded framework is developed by the OpenEmbedded community, which was formally established in 2003. OpenEmbedded is the recommended build system of the Yocto Project, which is a Linux Foundation workgroup that assists commercial companies in the development of Linux-based systems for embedded products. The build system is based on BitBake "recipes", which specify how a particular package is built, but also includes lists of dependencies and source code locations, as well as instructions on how to install and remove a compiled package. OpenEmbedded tools use these recipes to fetch and patch source code, compile and link binaries, produce binary packages, and create bootable images. Historically, OpenEmbedded's collection of recipes were stored in a single repository, and the metadata was structured in a form now called "OpenEmbedded-Classic". By 2010, it had become increasingly difficult to manage the ever-growing number of recipes. To resolve this, recipe metadata was split into multiple layers. The lowest layer, which includes platform-independent and distribution-independent metadata is called "OpenEmbedded-Core". Architecture-specific, application-specific and distribution-dependent instructions are applied in appropriate target support layers that can override or complement the instructions from lower layers. Additionally, changes to the recipes at the core layer are now managed with a pull model: instead of committing their changes directly to the repository, developers now send their patches to the mailing list. The patches, if approved, are then merged by a maintainer. The OpenEmbedded framework can be installed and automatically updated via Git.
History
The OpenEmbedded Project 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 OpenEmbedded superseded these projects and was used to build any of them from the same code base.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, although most development is, or will be, based on the new OpenEmbedded-Core in the future. The OpenEmbedded-Core Project resulted from the merge of the Yocto Project with OpenEmbedded. 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 getported 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. 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: ; Developer layer ; Commercial layer ; UI-specific layer ; Hardware-specific layer ; Yocto layer ; OpenEmbedded-Core layer
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:
