buildroot linux tool (Making Embedded Linux easy)

See also

../../../../../../_images/logo_buildroot.png

Builroot logo

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.

Buildroot is useful mainly for people working with small or embedded systems, using various CPU architectures (x86, ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, etc.) : it automates the building process of your embedded system and eases the cross-compilation process.

The major Buildroot features are:

  • Can handle everything in your embedded system development project: cross-compiling toolchain, root filesystem generation, kernel image compilation and bootloader compilation. Buildroot is also sufficiently flexible that it can also be used for only one or several of these steps.
  • Is very easy to set up, thanks to its menuconfig, gconfig and xconfig configuration interfaces, familiar to all embedded Linux developers. Building a basic embedded Linux system with Buildroot typically takes 15-30 minutes.
  • Supports several hundreds of packages for userspace applications and libraries: X.org stack, Gtk2, Qt, DirectFB, SDL, GStreamer and a large number of network-related and system-related utilities and libraries are supported.
  • Supports multiple filesystem types for the root filesystem image: JFFS2, UBIFS, tarballs, romfs, cramfs, squashfs and more.
  • Can generate an uClibc cross-compilation toolchain, or re-use your existing glibc, eglibc or uClibc cross-compilation toolchain
  • Has a simple structure that makes it easy to understand and extend. It relies only on the well-known Makefile language.

Buildroot is maintained by Peter Korsgaard, and licensed under the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE V2 (Or later).

Stable releases are delivered every three months.

Project Versions

Table Of Contents

Previous topic

GNU/linux kernel tools

Next topic

buildroot versions

This Page