Chapter 6. Embedded Linux Toolkits

THE MOST STRAIGHTFORWARD WAY OF EMBEDDING LINUX into the device of your choice is to grab the latest Linux kernel, a cross-compiler for your target hardware, a C library, and some applications—and start hacking. The problem is that you’ll spend an awful lot of time hacking before you have something that simply boots, let alone actually does what you want it to do.

In 1999-2000, many people in the Linux community realized how applicable Linux is to a large number of problems in the embedded application space. They also realized how non-trivial it is to create a working Linux system for the typical embedded platform. Many software toolkits were built to simplify the job of creating the software for these embedded Linux devices. Some of these toolkits come from newly created and well-funded companies; others come from companies that have been in the embedded market for quite some time but have decided to reinvent themselves for Linux. Still others don’t come from companies at all, but are Open Source projects built up from collaborations across the Internet.

This chapter attempts to make sense of the jumbled mishmash of competing embedded Linux toolkits available as of 2001. Of course, as I write these words, the world continues to spin—so the landscape may be very different as you read this. However, I’ve attempted to define the questions that you should be asking of the packages you’re considering.