Monday, December 8, 2008

bitbake..smart package building tool

Ever tried Linux package building which has got many dependency ??? I will give one example of multimedia player..which depends on middle ware codecs, middleware (gst), kernel, driver modules, X window System, widget sets libs and so and so..
If one starts compiling media player then all dependency packages must be compiled first and last player hoping all the compiler requirements, library versions, proper headers, APi are in place.

Recently I came across "bitbake" one smart tool which fetches source code from the web, unpacks, applies patches, configure as per the system capabilities, compiles, installs and creates binary/dev/debug packages for you..so simple and makes life easy...I got to work extensively with bitbake when porting openembedded based Poky mobile platform.

bitbake parses .bb file which will have following information...
1. License and package description
2. Package dependency tree
3. Package name and its download location URl with method of download (git, cvs, svn, ftp..)
4. List of patches to apply
5. Package configuration options
6. Compiler options
7. Package installation options...

Just imagine all above steps are performed by bitbake through one single command. Life made easy ??




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