build
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Accepting Constraints in Build Systems
As Embedded Systems become more complex, the complexity of the process to build the software for these systems also increases. As humans, our ability to deal with complexity is limited, so we develop tools and processes to manage the comple…
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Git, Versioning, and Branching for Embedded Linux Development
When building a product using Linux, versioning and branching of your software is an important consideration. Everyone’s needs are different depending on the size of the team, culture, and testing requirements, so there is no one size that …
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Separation of Source and Build Directories
As we work with larger and more complex systems (i.e. Linux), more and more of our time is spent on integration and pulling different pieces together. We often need to debug or understand code we did not write – especially in build systems…
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Why Git?
Some time back, I gave a presentation that included an overview of the Git version control system. I still occasionally get asked why Git should be used instead of Subversion, as it seems harder at first. Most developers don’t really unde…
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Best practices for using CMake in OpenEmbedded/Yocto
I’ve already written about using autotools and qmake in OE. With recent projects, we’re using CMake to build most C/C++ components. Like any good tool, CMake has a learning curve, but it seems to do its job quite well. Below are examples…
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OpenEmbedded Build Template
How does one set an OpenEmbedded/Yocto/Poky/Angstrom build? There are many options. Some include: Angstrom setup scripts Poky Freescale Community BSP OpenEmbedded core standalone (I’m sure there are many others, feel free to add in commen…
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OS Containers for Build Systems
Since I’ve been running archlinux on some of my systems, one thing I’ve found useful is systemd-nspawn. systemd-nspawn containers (or chroots on non-systemd systems) give you a quick way to install a Linux distribution, that can run inside …
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Git submodules can now track branches
As of version 1.8.2, Git submodules can now track branches instead of specific commits. This is good news as in many cases, this is exactly the behavior we want. However, Git submodules are still not as flexible as Google repo, but since …
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Git and Distributed Development
This is part of an ongoing series of articles on the Git version control system. The “many repository” paradigm has been partly driven by the distributed development paradigm. Git solves the problem of multiple developers working in mult…
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Git Overview Screencast
This screencast (use Firefox to view the screencast) provides an overview of the Git version control system. There are 3 features of Git that are especially interesting: many repositories (vs. one large repository) distributed developme…
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Git and Why Multiple Repositories
This is part of an ongoing series of articles on the Git version control system. This article discusses the trend in software configuration management toward multiple repositories, rather than one large repository. In the past when many co…
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OpenEmbedded srctree and gitver
Recently an OpenEmbedded class name srctree became usable. The srctree.bbclass enables operation inside of an existing source tree for a project, rather than using the fetch/unpack/patch idiom. The srctree.bbclass in combination with the …
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Installing OMAP3 images on a SD card
This article and screen-cast is a continuation of that last couple posts describing the BEC OE build template. The purpose again for a build system is to automate tedious manual tasks, and in doing so, we end up documenting how the build s…
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OpenEmbedded Build Template
Setting up an OpenEmbedded build is a fairly simple process if you carefully follow the instructions. There are also a number of scripts available that automate the setup such as the OpenEmbedded Tools for Eclipse, the Angstrom setup scrip…
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Notification at the end of builds
I do quite a few OpenEmbedded project builds during the course of a week. This process usually takes 3-5 minutes. That is just enough time to get distracted doing something else and forget about the build until an hour later when you real…
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Best practices for building Gtk+ applications with OpenEmbedded
I recentlywrote an article about best practices building Qt applications with OpenEmbedded, and it occured to me that I should write an equivalent article for Gtk+ applications. The same points apply – put your application source in a SCM …
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Best practices for building Qt applications with OpenEmbedded
This article describes how to cross compile a Qt application (named qt_tutorial) with OpenEmbedded, and several best practices you should consider. OpenEmbedded currently includes fairly good support for building Qt – both Qt Embedded and …
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How to capture source changes to an OpenEmbedded package
One task that is a often confusing to new OpenEmbedded users is how to capture changes to the source code for a package/recipe. First, lets review the progression in tools use to capture source code changes. Figure 1: Progression of tools …
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How to disable SSH host key checking
This article presents a very nice overview of options to disable ssh host key checking. When working with embedded systems where you are constantly reloading the rootfs, it is really annoying to have to edit your ~/.ssh/known_hostsevery ti…
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Autotools quick reference
At some point, most Linux developers need to master Autotools. For most of us, this is a fairly painful process, but like any good tool, Autotools is extremely useful and well worth learning. For example, if your program is set up correct…
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Embedded Linux development on Windows???
From http://www.embedded.com/design/opensource/204300381 : Host platform Although everything I will describe can be also done on a Windows host, I recommend using Linux. It’s more convenient, and more tools and utilities are available. And…
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Do you need "software update" functionality in your Embedded Linux system?
In this day and age, most embedded systems include a way for users to easily update software once the device has been deployed. This article discusses the requirements for a field update mechanism along with pointers for how to implement. …
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How to build GNU/Linux for an embedded x86 computer
Recently, I had a customer who needed an embedded Linux distribution running on an Advantech PCM-9371 single board computer (SBC). The PCM-9371 contains a low voltage Celeron or Pentium III processor. This article describes why the Openem…