Openembedded based embedded linux development

• Main Author: Loh, Khai Ping.
• Other Authors: Vun Chan Hua, Nicholas
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Hardware
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/48505
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In the past two years, Linux has become popular on embedded devices—especially consumer gadgets, telecom routers and switches, Internet appliances and automotive applications. Due to the modular nature, it is easy to slim down the operating environment by removing utility programs, tools, and other system services that are not needed. In the past, many embedded linux developer uses an open source tool named ‘Buildroot’ to develop their embedded board but in this project, we will explore another way to develop a reliable and fully functional Embedded Linux by using an open source tool named ‘Openembedded’. Its popularity among linux developer is increasing and Openembedded is dubbed to be the tool to replace Buildroot in the future. The project starts by understanding the architecture of Linux before going in to analyse Openembedded. After which, we will discuss how to configure Openembedded for developing on Linux development PC and for the ARM9 development board. During the project, significant time is spent on building kernel and exploring various root file system mounting technique. Upon getting the kernel and file system, we will be exploring on various software application and device driver building on Openembedded. To demonstrate that the objective of the project, a web server based application is developed and tested on the board. As a result, the author has successfully managed to develop a fully operational Linux distribution using Openembedded. In the future embedded software developer working on it will only need to explore ways of building more complex software on ARM9 without the worries of kernel and file systems.