BitBake

BitBake

Development status	Active
Written in	Python
Operating system	Linux
Platform	Cross-platform
Type	Build automation
License	GPLv2
Website	developer.berlios.de/projects/bitbake

BitBake is a make-alike build tool with the special focus of distributions and packages for embedded Linux cross compilation even if it's not limited to only that. It is derived from Portage, which is the package management system used by the Gentoo Linux distribution and then existed for some time in the OpenEmbedded project until it got separated in a stand alone maintained, distribution independent tool.

BitBake Recipes

BitBake recipes tell bitbake how to build a particular package. It includes all the package dependencies, sources to fetch the source code from, configuration, compilation, build, install and remove instructions. It also stores the meta data for the package in standard variables.

The BitBake recipes consist of the source URL (http, https, ftp, cvs, svn, git, local file system location) of the package, dependencies and compile or install options. During the build process they are used to track dependencies, performing native or cross-compile of the package and pack it up so that it's suitable to be installed on the local or target device. It's also possible to create complete images, consisting of root file system and kernel. As a first step in a cross build setup the framework will attempt to create a cross-compiler toolchain fit for the target platform.

See also

• MontaVista Software
• OpenEmbedded
• Openmoko

External links

• BitBake Homepage
• BitBake User Manual
• FOSDEM'05 presentation of BitBake and OpenEmbedded
• BitBake at Freecode