Lecture 6 — Module 4: Recipes: the atoms of the system¶

Course: Yocto guide | Phase 2 — Embedded Linux, Yocto

Previous: Lecture 05 | Next: Lecture 07 — Module 5

1. Anatomy of a recipe¶

A recipe answers predictable questions: where sources come from (Git, tarball, license file); how it is configured and compiled (autotools, CMake, Meson, Makefile, prebuilt); what files are installed into staged roots; how it is split into runtime packages (dev, dbg, etc.).

2. Inheritance and classes¶

Instead of copying boilerplate, recipes inherit behavior: autotools, cmake, meson, kernel, image, and related classes. Classes encode how this kind of software is usually built.

3. Variables you will see constantly (conceptual)¶

Names evolve slightly, but the ideas do not: SRC_URI (what to download; patches often listed); S (unpacked sources); B (out-of-tree build dir); WORKDIR (per-recipe scratch); PN, PV, PR (name/version/revision).

4. Lab 4 — Inspect a real recipe¶

Pick a small recipe in OE-Core. Trace which class it inherits, which tasks exist (do_compile, do_install, etc.), and what package names it produces.

Use bitbake -e with your recipe name for effective environment (large output: learn to search it). Optionally bitbake -c menuconfig linux-yocto when you are ready for kernel exploration.

Done when: you can name the tasks between source and package for that recipe.

Previous: Lecture 05 | Next: Lecture 07 — Module 5