Evaluation Buildroot
Buildroot is a set of Makefiles and patches that makes it easy to generate a complete embedded Linux system. Buildroot can generate any or all of a cross-compilation toolchain, a root filesystem, a kernel image and a bootloader image. (source)
This evaluation was done with the Buildroot version 2014.02.
Buildroot uses a ncurses-based configuration menu similar to the Linux configuration menu.
Products
This part of the document evaluates the support for the defined requirements.
Linux Kernel and U-Boot
Buildroot supplies a mechanism to build any Linux kernel or Uboot version provided by the user. It provides an interface to add additional configuration files and patches. The configuration of Uboot and Linux can be done separately.
Toolchain The user can decide whether Buildroot should build its own
toolchain or use an external one. This resulting toolchain is designed to work within the Buildroot context. Unfortunately these toolchains contain binaries compiled with absolute symbolic links. As a result the toolchains are not portable which is a requirement for the build system.
RootFS
The Buildroot tool is able to provide a lot of packages for the target system. It is also possible to build BusyBox-only RootFS. Every package is built on the host system using a cross-toolchain.
Due to the fact, that Buildroot does only provide a small set of the standard Linux userspace applications and libraries, it can be reasonably assumed that the required software packages for the different lab-courses must be added to the Buildroot manually.
Buildroot allows the user to add own packages. But adding new software can be a cumbersome process, because it has to be cross-compilable and package dependencies need to be maintained manually.
Summary
Buildroot is a nice tool to build an own distribution for different target platforms. The way of configuring the distribution is well known and intuitive for people who previously configured and built a Linux kernel, and are familiar with the principle of cross compilation. People who are new to these topics need to read documentation that goes beyond the F1-help-text which is provided by the Buildroot configuration menu.
On the other hand Buildroot can't satisfy all requirements of the embEDUx project. The important requirement that the system has to provide a portable toolchain, is as aforementioned not satisfied with Buildroot. Another unsatisfied requirement is the provision of userspace applications for the RootFS with low configuration effort.
| Criteria | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Cross-target support | YES | Manual configuration necessary |
| Package management | LIMITED | Difficult to extend |
| Build routine Automation | YES | Includes U-boot, Kernel, Toolchain, RootFS |
| Deployment | NO | System must be installed by hand on the embedded device |