Buildroot
When you need to develop a board support package (BSP) for an embedded Linux system fast, Buildroot is an option you should consider. Easy to work with, fast to compile, free and open source, Buildroot supports thousands of packages, network utilities, and system utilities, makes this easy to use tool to generate embedded Linux systems and a great choice for your next BSP project.
What is Buildroot?
Buildroot began as an open source project to string together Makefiles, but has evolved in the last twenty years to be the easiest and among the fastest packages to build an embedded Linux system for multiple boards. Popular with hobbyists and professionals alike, Buildroot is the basis for many BSPs on a wide variety of embedded devices. Today, Buildroot, and alternatives like Yocto, are the gold-standard for BSP development in the embedded realm.
The main challenges of Buildroot
Lack of expertise
Even if the open source project Buildroot has been around for decades, there is a good chance that your internal teams may not have experience with it. Free and open source BSPs abound, and adapting one of these existing ones might have served your teams well in the past; building more than a basic system with Buildroot from scratch can often be more of a challenge.
Internal teams moved to Yocto
Many internal teams that might have had experience of using Buildroot have moved to widely supported alternative packages such as Yocto to create and generate embedded Linux systems. With BSP development largely shifting from Buildroot to Yocto in recent years, your internal teams may feel confident with Yocto but lack the knowledge to develop with Buildroot for your target system.
Updating existing Buildroot package
Like all embedded packages, Buildroot is regularly updated, and new stable releases emerge every three months. Unless your developers work regularly with the easy to use tool Buildroot, they may face real challenges updating your existing Buildroot package in line with the latest release and install the security features of the new version.
Key elements to consider
Travis Rothlisberger
Director of Device Development
We approached Witekio having limited prior experience with embedded Linux or Qt, and came away not only with a viable proof-of-concept but also with a solid foundation for continued product development on this and other projects.
HOW TO DEVELOP in Buildroot
Discussion
Every Buildroot project begins with a discussion to ensure that our teams understand your expectations, goals, and the outcomes that you are seeking.
The first step is a deep dive so that we understand your needs. These needs can be as simple as a one-off BSP or as complex as laying the foundation for a range of devices with different hardware components to be deployed widely. By communicating needs and expectations early, we can create a roadmap for your project, that shows the entire process.
It’s important for our teams to assess your hardware, too, both to understand what you are seeking the Buildroot package for and also to leverage their expertise to your favor. Our teams understand the different hardware options and can advise if there is an alternative you might consider to level-up your product.
Finally, our team will setup and present a project plan and align on the roadmap for the delivery of your Buildroot project. The roadmap will include deadlines, budgets, and a final delivery date, as well as information about how your internal teams will be kept updated on progress throughout the project.
Development
With the roadmap for your Buildroot project in place, our teams can get to work developing your BSP.
Buildroot development begins with the creation of a config file. From here our engineers can begin adding the components and install the new package that will result in the BSP for your device.
Our engineers then customize the BSP to your requirements. As well as customizing the BSP to your needs and expectations with Buildroot as defined in the roadmap, we also leverage our experience developing custom BSPs for industries including for example medical devices, the cosmetics sector, and consumer electronics to ensure that your custom BSP is aligned with best practices.
All the packages and files are tested and validated internally to ensure that they run without causing issues, leverage all of the capacity of the hardware that you have selected and are adapted to your constraints and end use cases.
With the validation stage complete, our teams fully document the BSP and the Buildroot package. This documentation is clear and complete and ensures that your internal teams will be able to take full control of the source code once the Buildroot project is complete.
Finally, with the BSP complete, the testing done, and the documentation of the files finalized, we hand over the BSP to your teams. While we can be involved in flashing the BSP to your hardware, your internal teams will have everything that they need to take the source code and deploy it at scale themselves.
Post-delivery
Even after the build process of a Buildroot project is complete, Witekio is there to make sure that your product and your teams are adding maximum value to your business.
Many customers choose to engage with Witekio for the maintenance of their Buildroot BSP. Our teams can regularly scan for vulnerabilities, fix bugs that emerge due to interactions with new a software version and keep your end users content with their choice.
Significantly, as security threats emerge and attack vectors change, Witekio can help your teams manage the security of the devices you deploy. Regular security assessments, scanning of attack surfaces, and reinforcing existing security capacities are just some of the ways that our teams can help keep your devices safe and your reputation intact.
Finally, when your product owners decide to expand the feature set of your devices, Witekio is ready to help you push new feature updates to your device. With experience in the custom BSP underlying your code, our teams have the knowledge of your product and industry to push those changes rapidly.
The main benefits of Buildroot for embedded Linux systems
Compile speed
Yocto and Buildroot are two of the build systems that developers use to fetch and compile the packages they need to deliver the file system and BSP for an operating system and the hardware. While both tools have their advantages, when it comes to the compile speed, Buildroot builds are way out in front. By building system image instead of an embedded Linux distributions, Buildroot is faster, and projects can advance more rapidly than with a Yocto alternative and, of course, cost savings due to quicker compile times translate into better profitability and a greater return on your investment in the longer term.
Ease to learn
The build system Buildroot was born of a need for a simply structured tool that could generate embedded Linux systems through cross-compilation as an open source project. It’s held form to this stated goal in the decades since it was released and today this pretty cool simplicity remains. For the vast majority of developers of embedded systems, this makes the tool easy to work with and a basic system or BSP can be developed rapidly – sometimes in less than an hour – thanks to the Linux kernel-like menuconfig, gconfig, and xconfig configuration interfaces. Relying on the widely known Makefile language, it’s easy to get started and advance with Buildroot relative to alternatives.
Graphical User interface
Unlike some alternative approaches and other packages, Buildroot employs a unique and familiar graphical user interface. This makes developing a BSP easier and incredibly user-friendly, putting the simple structure of the system right in front of the developer, which makes it easy to configure Buildroot. The menuconfig window, for example, makes your Buildroot package simple to navigate and – as long as your developers understand how to leverage the Makefile language – this graphical interface only accelerates development further.
Witekio can support your Buildroot project
Witekio has been developing BSPs with Buildroot since the open source project was first released in 2005. In the decades since our engineers have built or adapted BSPs for embedded Linux projects in a variety of industries and devices in the consumer and industrial spheres alike. With nearly 20 years’ experience in Buildroot development and building Linux and with a track record of success, our teams are perfectly positioned to help you drive your project forward, meet your development goals, and deliver an end product that meets the demands of your users. Contact our team to get started on your Buildroot project today.
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