Part 3: Using Poky to Build Linux images

In the first blog post I explained what Yocto is an how the Scarthgap version can be used to build a custom Linux version, especially for embedded systems.

The second post introduced bitbake, a build engine that can be used to do the builds by creating recipes.

This third post talks about the poky toolset that will make it easy to build the recipes and set outputs as desired.

A spider bot building a structure brick by brick. Signifies how poky build tool is used to do yocto builds.

What is Poky?

Poky is an open-source project that provides a reference distribution for Yocto Project-based embedded systems. The Yocto Project is a collaborative project that aims to create a framework for building, testing, and maintaining embedded Linux distributions. Poky serves as the foundation for many popular embedded Linux distributions, including Android Things and Yotta.

Why Use Poky for your Builds?

Simplified Development Process

By leveraging Poky as a starting point, developers can focus on adding custom features or components rather than building everything from scratch.

Faster Time to Market

Poky's pre-built recipes and modular design enable faster development cycles, allowing developers to bring products to market more quickly

Improved Quality and Reliability

By using a well-tested distribution like Poky as a foundation, developers can ensure that their custom distributions are built on top of a solid foundation.

Ease Of Customization

Poky’s modular design allows developers to easily customize and extend the distribution without modifying the core code

Learn more

There have been a bunch of improvements in bitbale where poky is now setup by default. Setup can be found here:

https://docs.yoctoproject.org/dev-manual/poky-manual-setup.html