[Buildroot] Use of buildroot in an embedded linux project

[Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>]

Le Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:06:44 +0100,
Hichem Boussetta <boussettahichem@yahoo.fr> a ?crit :

> I am working on a project about building embedded linux systems, and
> I have to choose between many tools that generate cross gnu
> toolchains and root filesystem (buildroot, scratchbox, ELDK...). So,
> it would be grateful if someone could tell me about the advantages of
> using buildroot and about its limitations, because I heard that we
> found some difficulties to cross compile certain packages, like
> Kerberos5.

I don't have all the advantages/drawbacks in my mind, but here are a
few.

Drawbacks :

 * Only uClibc toolchains can be generated by Buildroot ;

 * External toolchain support is still experimental (this is only a
   problem if you plan to use a toolchain that has been generated by
   Buildroot) ;

 * No package management (ipkg, opkg) like you could have with
   OpenEmbedded, for example.

Advantages :

 * Simple enough so that a single human being can manage to understand
   how it works and tune it according to the needs of the project, and
   that you don't spend 5 days trying to figure out how the damn thing
   works.

 * Pretty good support from the Buildroot community.

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, Free Electrons
Kernel, drivers and embedded Linux development,
consulting, training and support.
http://free-electrons.com