Lecture 8 — Module 6: Images, packages, and features¶

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

Previous: Lecture 07 | Next: Lecture 09 — Module 7

1. Image recipes vs packagegroups¶

Image recipe — names the packages that become the rootfs for a flashable artifact.
packagegroup recipes — bundles related packages for reuse across images.

2. IMAGE_INSTALL and friends¶

Teams usually extend images with:

IMAGE_INSTALL:append — additive, review-friendly in many setups.

Avoid editing Poky images directly; extend via bbappend or a custom image recipe in your layer.

3. Image features (conceptual)¶

Features like debugging helpers, tools, or init tweaks are often gated as image features (exact names vary by distro/release). Treat them as policy switches, not random variables.

4. Lab 6 — Custom image¶

Create recipes-core/images/mycourse-image.bb that:

requires or inherits appropriately from a minimal base image for your release.
Adds two packages you need (for example, strace and your favorite tiny shell utility).

Done when: bitbake mycourse-image produces a new deployable artifact and you can identify its size difference vs minimal.

Previous: Lecture 07 | Next: Lecture 09 — Module 7