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Previous thread, 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24800037 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24800037 This article is awesome and has a ton of gre

Previous thread, 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24800037 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24800037 This article is awesome and has a ton of great knowledge, but it’s a little dismissive of openembedded, and if you click through to the previous thread you’ll see a lot of people come to it’s defense.

pmorici 5y ago
The authors description of the two has been consistent with my experience. Buildroot is a lot easier to get going with. There might be good reasons to use yacto but if you are new to all this I wouldn’t start their.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
voakbasda 5y ago
Lots of good replies on that thread. I have been doing embedded development for 30 years, and Yocto is the best build system that I have used for managing large embedded systems. If you need to professionally manage multiple distributions across menagerie of different host and target machines, there simply is no other meaningful choice that operates at its scale. I first encountered BitBake before either the OpenEmbedded or Yocto projects existed. Since then, I have done professional embedded systems consulting for dozens of platforms, using Yocto almost exclusively in recent years. I have done everything with it, from simple board bring ups to implementing re-usable BSP layers used by multiple product families. I might be a little biased here, but I have used all of the other popular embedded build systems too. Other choices still have their place for smaller and simpler projects, just as one might choose something smaller than Linux for the kernel. However, Yocto and Linux have attracted unparalleled open source development and support resources. Other projects simply cannot hope to match their established output. These projects will not go away any time soon, which means LTS releases and stable infrastructure to host them, regardless of individual players or projects coming or going. What other choice exists with that kind of backing? For commercial projects that grow beyond a certain scope (i.e. most modern full-featured embedded systems), other choices simply do not match its existing capabilities. Of course, you can always fork a full server/desktop Linux distribution like Debian, but dressing up a standard distribution in embedded clothing often requires more customization. That comes with develop and maintenance costs, though I admit the lines do start to blur at a certain point. The BitBake/OpenEmbedded/Yocto/Poky ecosystem is huge and poses a long and steep learning curve, but it offers customization and extensibility unparalleled by any other offering that I have had the (mis)fortune of using in my career. The same is true for the Linux kernel ecosystem, right? Them's the trade-offs we make.
- eschneider 5y ago
  Yocto is fantastic and well documented but getting started is hard and nothing makes much sense until you fully understand it. Once it clicks, though, it’s great. Totally worth the effort.
- synergy20 5y ago
  I have been doing embedded linux for 22 years and sadly Openembedded/Yocto has been the worst build system ever. It's the Gentoo for embedded(where is Gentoo nowadays), over-engineered so much for most use cases unless you work at Windriver or Amazon that deals with lots of different boards from different vendors and you have unlimited resource to work with the complexity. If I got a codebase that uses Yocto/Openembedded, the first thing I do is to find the related patches there and convert them to buildroot/debian/openwrt/LTIB(old stuff)/etc depends on the hardware spec. I wasted too much time when there is a bug in Openembedded that could take forever to debug, layer over layer, override over override on those meta mazes, it always feels like you're fighting with openembedded/yocto itself instead of getting your work done. I since have been avoiding openembedded/yocto at all costs.
  - dgfitz 5y ago
    There is a learning curve, but when crossed, it’s a beautiful system.
    - synergy20 5y ago
      same could be said to gentoo, from experience over 2 decades and at least 5 projects involved yocto(back then it was openembedded), for the same project, yocto will take 5x more time/efforts per my measurement. yes adding stuff is fine, building is the slowest but I can wait, however if something went wrong, be prepared to debug openembdded/yocto-itself for days, this does not exist in other alternatives: you debug your own code, not the framework there. It's over engineered, over rated, great for consultants to charge hours, terrible for companies(except for big guns) to deliver product fast. Sorry I have a strong opinion here but it just wasted too much of my time in the past.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> but it’s a little dismissive of openembedded I don't really see it in the article. I use OpenEmbedded for my projects, but I never recommend it to beginners as the place to start. Buildroot is unquestionably easier to get started with and use for one-off projects (unless you're trying to use vendor-provided Yocto/OE layers, in which case obviously it's not an option). The article's conclusion about Yocto is spot-on, in my opinion: If you're quickly iterating, Buildroot is the way to go.

pmorici 5y ago

The authors description of the two has been consistent with my experience. Buildroot is a lot easier to get going with. There might be good reasons to use yacto but if you are new to all this I wouldn’t start their.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

voakbasda 5y ago

Lots of good replies on that thread. I have been doing embedded development for 30 years, and Yocto is the best build system that I have used for managing large embedded systems. If you need to professionally manage multiple distributions across menagerie of different host and target machines, there simply is no other meaningful choice that operates at its scale. I first encountered BitBake before either the OpenEmbedded or Yocto projects existed. Since then, I have done professional embedded systems consulting for dozens of platforms, using Yocto almost exclusively in recent years. I have done everything with it, from simple board bring ups to implementing re-usable BSP layers used by multiple product families. I might be a little biased here, but I have used all of the other popular embedded build systems too. Other choices still have their place for smaller and simpler projects, just as one might choose something smaller than Linux for the kernel. However, Yocto and Linux have attracted unparalleled open source development and support resources. Other projects simply cannot hope to match their established output. These projects will not go away any time soon, which means LTS releases and stable infrastructure to host them, regardless of individual players or projects coming or going. What other choice exists with that kind of backing? For commercial projects that grow beyond a certain scope (i.e. most modern full-featured embedded systems), other choices simply do not match its existing capabilities. Of course, you can always fork a full server/desktop Linux distribution like Debian, but dressing up a standard distribution in embedded clothing often requires more customization. That comes with develop and maintenance costs, though I admit the lines do start to blur at a certain point. The BitBake/OpenEmbedded/Yocto/Poky ecosystem is huge and poses a long and steep learning curve, but it offers customization and extensibility unparalleled by any other offering that I have had the (mis)fortune of using in my career. The same is true for the Linux kernel ecosystem, right? Them's the trade-offs we make.

eschneider 5y ago
Yocto is fantastic and well documented but getting started is hard and nothing makes much sense until you fully understand it. Once it clicks, though, it’s great. Totally worth the effort.
synergy20 5y ago
I have been doing embedded linux for 22 years and sadly Openembedded/Yocto has been the worst build system ever. It's the Gentoo for embedded(where is Gentoo nowadays), over-engineered so much for most use cases unless you work at Windriver or Amazon that deals with lots of different boards from different vendors and you have unlimited resource to work with the complexity. If I got a codebase that uses Yocto/Openembedded, the first thing I do is to find the related patches there and convert them to buildroot/debian/openwrt/LTIB(old stuff)/etc depends on the hardware spec. I wasted too much time when there is a bug in Openembedded that could take forever to debug, layer over layer, override over override on those meta mazes, it always feels like you're fighting with openembedded/yocto itself instead of getting your work done. I since have been avoiding openembedded/yocto at all costs.
- dgfitz 5y ago
  There is a learning curve, but when crossed, it’s a beautiful system.
  - synergy20 5y ago
    same could be said to gentoo, from experience over 2 decades and at least 5 projects involved yocto(back then it was openembedded), for the same project, yocto will take 5x more time/efforts per my measurement. yes adding stuff is fine, building is the slowest but I can wait, however if something went wrong, be prepared to debug openembdded/yocto-itself for days, this does not exist in other alternatives: you debug your own code, not the framework there. It's over engineered, over rated, great for consultants to charge hours, terrible for companies(except for big guns) to deliver product fast. Sorry I have a strong opinion here but it just wasted too much of my time in the past.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> but it’s a little dismissive of openembedded I don't really see it in the article. I use OpenEmbedded for my projects, but I never recommend it to beginners as the place to start. Buildroot is unquestionably easier to get started with and use for one-off projects (unless you're trying to use vendor-provided Yocto/OE layers, in which case obviously it's not an option). The article's conclusion about Yocto is spot-on, in my opinion: If you're quickly iterating, Buildroot is the way to go.