Build Embedded Linux from Yocto for QEMU x86 and the first application to it

This article is a quick start with pictures for those who need to build Embedded Linux using Yocto.

If you are going to build Embedded Linux for specific hardware, for example, for SoC on FPGA, then, probably, as I come across the Yocto project.



Yocto is a unifying project

• developer tools;
• assembly system;
• a set of software interfaces;
• a collection of meta-packages that extend the capabilities of the platform;
• plugins for Eclipse and Anjuta.

I tried to describe the process so that you could spend less time on problems with setting up and preparing and get down to work as soon as possible.

Build a Linux image

Basis for assembly - article

"Yocto Project Quick Start" .

I will collect in a folder

~/My_Designs/Poky 

A small digression:

Having launched the terminal, execute all commands in it, because in the course of the work, environment variables are created and used. If you closed the terminal and opened a new one, then go to

 ~.../poky 

and have to repeat some commands. For example,

 source oe-init-build-env 

I create a git repository

 $ git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/poky $ cd poky $ git checkout -b dizzy origin/dizzy 

now the current directory

 ~/My_Designs/Poky/poky 

now, according to Yocto terms, it came out

Source Directory - "poky"

local working area (local branch) - dizzy

First done

 $ source oe-init-build-env 

This command sets up the shell environment, creates an initial modifiable set of configuration files, and interacts with the BitBake system execution environment by using a script file that allows Poky to determine whether the minimum system requirements are met. The result of executing the command will either report problems, for example, missing packages, or the possibility to continue editing the conf / local.conf file.



Edit conf / local.conf:

 $ nano conf/local.conf 

 BB_NUMBER_THREADS ?= "3" PARALLEL_MAKE ?= "-j 3" EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES = "debug-tweaks eclipse-debug tools-debug debug-tweaks" 

Here you should specify the number of threads that will run the bitbake build tool. To make the most of the computational capabilities, the number of threads must match the number of processor cores. I pointed to 1 less, so that the computer during the assembly is more convenient to use.

I also added additional features useful for development.

Since we collect for the standard QEMU x86, the rest can not be changed.

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Then you can choose a “recipe” - an assembly version with its own set of libraries, utilities, created files, images, etc.

A list of recipes with their brief descriptions can be found here:

openembedded-core recipes

Scroll down to recipes starting with core- ...

I do not advise to collect core-image-minimal for review. There are no ssh and other tools for debugging.

I chose core-image-sato. This is a SATO GUI build.



Actually, the assembly:

 $ bitbake core-image-sato 

Be prepared to wait for the completion of the assembly, perhaps from 3 hours to 3 or more days. Fortunately, the process can be paused and resumed.

To pause, press + one (!) Times and wait until all the started operations are completed. Otherwise, perhaps, errors will appear and you will have to redo it. To resume, repeat

 $ bitbake core-image-sato 

If the terminal is closed, then in the new terminal, before building, you will have to repeat the setting of the environment variables:

 $ source oe-init-build-env 

Upon completion of the assembly, you can check what happened by running the QEMU emulator

 $ runqemu qemux86 

The xterm terminal window will appear, there you will need to enter the root password of the host to create the tap interface. There you can also see the IP host-machine on the tap interface and the IP of the emulated machine. I have 192.168.7.1 and 192.168.7.2, respectively.

Then, if the SATO is built, the graphical interface window should appear:







If the running emulator interferes, as long as it can be closed. Look through the arrows at the top of the GUI until the corresponding shutdown icon appears or enter poweroff via the SATO terminal or via ssh. Pro ssh will be later.

Do not close QEMU with a cross on the emulator main window. Close the regular means of the emulated machine. Otherwise, you will have ethX, tapX, virbrX interfaces on the QEMU system, which will have to be ifconfig ... ifdown, or how it is done on your OS. Or every time you start QEMU, there will be a new host IP and QEMU, which is inconvenient.

Development tools

Used by Eclipse IDE for C / C ++ Developers, Luna version. This build contains plug-ins CDT, GNU ARM and some other plug-ins useful for cross-compiling and firmware development.

You can download from here:

Eclipse Luna SR2 .



We will build applications Hello, world!

Eclipse Cross GCC

First, the simple way, we collect the usual means of Eclipse: CDT + GNU ARM

If these plug-ins are not yet in your Eclipse, then add the CDT plugin from the standard Eclipse repository and hence the GNU ARM Plugin for Eclipse GNU ARM C / C ++ Cross Compiler and whatever else you want.



Create a new C ++ project:

Menu Eclipse File-> New-> Project ... -> C / C ++ -> C ++ Project

Need to choose

Project type: Executable-> Hello World C ++ Project

Toolchains: Cross GCC



fill in the Author field

Now the most important thing about the build system:

Cross compiller prefix: i586-poky-linux-

Cross compiler path: /home/.../My_Designs/Poky/poky/build/tmp/sysroots/x86_64-linux/usr/bin/i586-poky-linux

We compile the project

Project-> Build Project

The executable file should appear.

Since you compiled it for QEMU x86 Linux, it should also run on your host machine, if, of course, you are working on x86 Linux or compatible with it. I have run on IA64 Ubuntu.

Now, if you managed to close QEMU, then run again.

 $ runqemu qemux86 

The xterm terminal window will appear, you will need to enter the root password to create the tap interface.







As you can see, I have a host IP of 192.168.7.1, IP qemu 192.168.7.2

A QEMU window with a graphical interface will then appear.

You can connect to QEMU via ssh and sftp. The first one is useful for running the program, the second one is for sending this program to the emulated machine.

I sent the file using the Krusader file manager. In Windows, you can use FileZilla or others.

In Krusader, I selected Tools-> New Net Connection ..., in the dialog you need to select sftp: //, enter IP and Username: root







I copied the executable file hello_cross_gcc_02 from the Debug folder of the project to the QEMU home folder.

Then you can open the terminal in the QEMU graphical interface and start the program for execution from there. It seemed to me more convenient to connect via ssh. In the terminal window of the host machine, run ssh

 $ ssh root@192.168.7.2 

and run the newly copied executable:

 $ ./hello_cross_gcc_02 

It should work

Hello World!

Build in ADT

Yocto provides the Application Development Toolkit (ADT), which contains:

• architecture-oriented and sysroot cross-toolchain compiled by OpenEmbedded using Poky
• Yocto plugin for Eclipse IDE
• QEMU to emulate target equipment
• various development tools working in user-space

Eclipse preparation

Made on the basis of this: Yocto - Customize Eclipse

In Eclipse, you need plug-ins from the standard configuration:

Linux Tools

• LTTng - Linux Tracing Toolkit

Mobile and Device Development

• C / C ++ Remote Launch
• Remote System Explorer End-user Runtime
• Remote System Explorer User Actions
• Target Management Terminal
• TCF Remote System Explorer add-in
• TCF Target Explorer

Programming languages

• Autotools Support for CDT
• C / C ++ Development Tools

And you need to add a plugin from Yocto. Download from here: Yocto Plugin for Eclipse

Assembly preparation

For the organization of interaction with IDE and development tools, scripts are provided:

 $ bitbake adt-installer $ bitbake meta-ide-support 

to run QEMU, the Yocto plugin needs rpcbind

 $ sudo apt-get install rpcbind 

need to edit the file / etc / default / rpcbind

 $ sudo nano /etc/default/rpcbind > OPTIONS="-i -w" 

unpack the root filesystem in the folder in sysroots, where the file system of the emulated machine is located. In our case, qemux86:

 $ runqemu-extract-sdk ./tmp/deploy/images/qemux86/core-image-sato-qemux86.tar.bz2 ./tmp/sysroots/qemux86 

Set up Yocto ADT in Eclipse

In Eclipse, the Windows menu-> Preferences, Yocto Project ADT

Cross Compiler Options

Build system derived toolchain

Toolchain Root Location:

/home/.../Poky/poky/build/

Sysroot Location:

/home/.../Poky/poky/build/tmp/sysroots/qemux86

Target Architecture: i586-poky-linux

Target Options:

QEMU

Kernel: /home/.../Poky/poky/build/tmp/deploy/images/qemux86/bzImage-qemux86.bin

Project Hello, World! in Eclipse with Yocto ADT

Create a new project

New Project-> C ++ Project

Project name: hello_qemu_cmake_04

Project type: Yocto Project ADT CMake Project-> Hello World C ++ CMake Project





Next, Next, Finish

Build project

In the project -> Debug folder should be hello_qemu_cmake_04

Now you can run the application in the same way as it was with the project created via Cross GCC, except that QEMU is now launched in Eclipse via the menu

Run-> External Tools-> qemu_i586-poky-linux

Running and debugging from the Eclipse IDE

Now configure Eclipse so that you can start and debug the application directly from the IDE.

The instruction is taken from here:

Downloading and debugging an application using ADT in Eclipse

For convenience, before configuring the remote machine must be running (Run-> External Tools-> qemu_i586-poky-linux, as in the previous section).

To set up debugging, select Eclipse from the menu.

Run -> Debug Configurations ...

In the list on the left you need to find “C / C ++ Remote Application”, there should be an item with the name of our project and virtual machine. I have this “hello_qemu_cmake_04_gdb_i586-poky-linux”. We must choose it.

The guide from Yocto suggests specifying the Remote Absolute File Path for C / C ++ Application. But now is not the best time for this. It will be more convenient to first set up communication with the remote machine.

In the meantime, in the right pane, select the Debugger tab, here you need to select remote gdb / mi from the Debugger drop-down list. This is my only list item, but you still need to select it. At the same time fill in some other form fields.



Go back to the Main tab and create a connection.

In the Connection section, select New .... In the New Connection window, select TCF. I have two of them. I do not know why the second, but the choice of the first exactly leads to a positive result.







In the Host name field, enter the IP of the machine in QEMU. The Connection name field can be left filled with IP. , ... In order to have less fuss later, you can also specify login when connecting. In the Connection section, click Edit ... and fill in the Default User ID. Root login





On the Main tab, select the connection you just created.

Now we specify the path to the file and the name of the file with which Eclipse will download the application being debugged to the remote machine.

If QEMU is running, you can click Browse ... and, if the connection is OK, you can see the file system of the remote machine and select the place where to download the application. You will not necessarily have the same picture as in the screenshot below. But what is important: you need to specify the file. If you are going to specify a folder in which there is no file with the name with which you want to download the executable file, then you will not be limited to this window. Click and add the file name in the Debug Configurations window.







The result should be something like this:







Now you can click.



In my Eclipse console window, “Remote Shell” was like this:

 root@qemux86:/# e c h o $ P WD'>' /> … 

Then an invitation to switch to the Debug perspective. It makes sense to agree.

The debugger stopped at the string

 printf("Hello World!\n"); 

Click Step Over (F6)

In the terminal

 ... Remote debugging from host 192.168.7.1 Hello World! 

Now you can write a program. Bye for QEMU x86.