Creating a custom Linux distribution for the Raspberry Pi (with Buildroot and OpenEmbedded/Yocto)

In this video, we will learn how to create a custom Linux distribution for the Raspberry Pi using Buildroot and OpenEmbedded/Yocto Project.
If you enjoyed the content and want more videos like this one, leave a comment, hit the like button and subscribe to the channel, so this video gets to more people!
Buildroot: buildroot.org/
Yocto Project: www.yoctoproje...
OpenEmbedded Layer Index: layers.openemb...
If you are interested in training and/or consulting on embedded Linux, check my company's website
Embedded Labworks: e-labworks.com...
Where else you can find me?
KZbin Channel: / spradotube
Linkedin: / sprado
Twitter: / sergioprado
Blog: sergioprado.blog/

[@jino139]

I don't have the time to watch your video right now, but I will make sure to do so. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your knowledge with us.

[@spradotube]

Yeah, take your time. And leave your feedback after watching it!

[@monalisasilva8933]

Thanks for the video. The audio is much better. Help me a lot!!

[@spradotube]

I am glad you enjoyed it, Monalisa!

[@eliasfilho7833]

Nice video Sergio. Thank you for that lesson.

[@spradotube]

Hi Elias! I am glad you enjoyed it!

[@sudheendraraobilamkar6938]

I was bit confused about yocto project after watching this video I got overview about this thanks for video.

[@spradotube]

That is great, thanks for the feedback!

[@luisalbertoespinosacalvo1610]

Gracias por hacer este tipo de videos, realmente estuve buscando a alguien que explicara bien estos temas

[@spradotube]

I am glad you enjoyed it!

[@TurboElectricUK]

Very good "get you started" video. Properly worked examples are of great value. Also I didn't know about the serial console on the Pi, so thanks for that. Just one suggestion: the view of the Raspberry Pi bottom right covers the text you are typing. I would move the overlay up maybe to the middle right so it shows it.

[@spradotube]

Gotcha. Thanks for the feedback!

[@gemini1014]

I have been following you for a long time in LinkedIn because of your content, As always, the content is amazing it would be nice addition if you could create an extension to this video on how to add our own layers for custom/not known HW

[@spradotube]

Thanks for the suggestion! Noted!

[@anishlavani9342]

Hi Sergio, thanks for tutorial it is grate! I tried to follow your instruction step by step with buildroot. I managed to compile output image sdcard.img with size 159.4Mb but when I put it into rpi4 nothings happens. Red LED is on. Is it should blink with green during boot up sequences? I connected usb-serial adaptor to PC using /dev/ttyUSB0 device at minicom. White wire connected to pin 8 (GPIO14 TX) green on pin 10(GPIO15 RX) no output on terminal. I swaped RX and TX nothing. Also connected HDMI monitor but no output there. Normal rpi OS loading just fine. I tried 4 different SD cards same result. Not sure where could be issue. I have filling that image not wroted completely or maybe missing some bootable sectors... what sd card file system should looks like ?

[@spradotube]

You should have probably two partitions in the sdcar, one with the bootloader files, and the other with the root file system. When you connect the SDCARD to your development machine, do you see them?

[@ArunkumarPadmanabhan]

excellent video . Helped me a lot .

[@spradotube]

I am glad the video was helpful!

[@gabrielpb876]

Great video, thanks by sharing this valuable content Sérgio!

[@spradotube]

I am glad you enjoyed Gabriel!

[@ilyesHidri]

I had this error after bitbake, ERROR: Layer raspberrypi is not compatible with the core layer which only supports these series: kirkstone (layer is compatible with styhead walnascar)

[@spradotube]

It seems you are ixing up layer versions. Make sure all layers are using the same version. For example, if you want to use kirkstone. Make sure all layers are using this version.

[@patrickegesa8264]

best embedded linux tutorial

[@spradotube]

Thanks!

[@user-id9kZf7T8Bl3Y]

Great video. Easy to understand.

[@spradotube]

Glad um enjoyed it!

[@David-yp9oz]

Extremely useful video

[@spradotube]

Thanks!

[@AakashKumarGupta-rh5pb]

there is some error coming while installing bitbake error end with failed with exit code '1' and then NATIVELSBSTRING "universal " showing before error its showing host name is there some solution for this

[@spradotube]

I haven't seen this issue before. I t might be something related to your build environment. Make sure you configured your environment as described in docs.yoctoproject.org/ref-manual/system-requirements.html#required-packages-for-the-build-host

[@AakashKumarGupta-rh5pb]

@@spradotube i click the image where error is showing can i send error image on your Instagram id if you give your Instagram handle I also chat gpt the error but nothing resolve

[@YashJain-cx7fs]

some of the content written by you in terminal we can't see that because of two split screen one was board and other your face cam. please rearrange though screen in your upcoming videos. thank you great videos

[@spradotube]

Gotcha. I will make sure that doesn't happen next time. Thanks for the feedback!

[@yousfineji6164]

Thank you for the excellent video, it was really helpful

[@spradotube]

Thanks! I am glad you enjoyed it!

[@mohamedsebri4955]

Thanks very much for the content! It was really helpful! I want to ask how can I access the raspberry pi board from my PC to see it boot and use it once I have built the image and flashed it into the SD card?

[@spradotube]

Hi Mohamed. I Would recommend attaching to its serial console. You might find a few tutoriais out there on how to do it, like this one: www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2021/attaching-raspberry-pis-serial-console-uart-debugging.

[@mohamedsebri4955]

@@spradotube Thank you very much!

[@mathias4863]

Thanks for the video. The audio improved a lot. The audio is a little bit delayed.

[@spradotube]

Hi @mathias4863! Yeah, now I have a decent Mic. I just need to work on the OBS settings. Thanks for the feedback!

[@agungprasetyonugroho3076]

why is my buildroot output/images only found 'rootfs.tar' not found file .img

[@spradotube]

Something is probably missing in your configuration. If you loaded one of Raspberry Pi's default configuration files, you should have a .img to flash and boot.

[@radhakrishnans785]

Whether Buildroot have option for creation of custom OS image with GUI based desktop enviroment ?

[@spradotube]

Buildroot supports graphic toolkits like GTK, QT, SDL, etc; and also display servers like X11 and Wayland/Weston, but it doesn't support building rich desktop environments like Gnome and KDE, mainly because it is focused on embedded systems.

[@ravibabumyself]

Thanks for helpful video. It will be helpful if you can add the Host Ubuntu version that you are using(or any recommended version) for custom Linux build as using different version might result in errors.

[@spradotube]

I am glad you liked it! My desktop is currently running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

[@sehjpal]

Thanks for the lesson, I followed the steps for yocto and built the images. After downloading to rpi, I was trying to use Wifi so found that in /lib/ there is no module folder. Can you please share more details on how to add Wifi drivers. TIA

[@spradotube]

In Buildroot, you need to enable BR2_PACKAGE_BRCMFMAC_SDIO_FIRMWARE_RPI. In Yocto, try bitbaking core-image-base instead of core-image-minimal.

[@andrewtristan6375]

Hello Sergio, thank you for making this video. Does Buildroot have the capability of building for the pi 5?

[@spradotube]

Hi Andrew. Unfortunatelly, as of this writing, there is no defconfig available for the Raspberry Pi 5 in Buildroot. Nothing prevents one from opening menuconfig and creating the configuration from scratch, but that of course would require some time and knowledge about how to build the OS components (especially low level stuff like the bootloader).

[@guestsneezeplayz]

i would like to add kde-plasma to my distro how could i do that?

[@spradotube]

I have never tried, but there is a meta-kde layer (layers.openembedded.org/layerindex/branch/master/layer/meta-kde/) that containes metadata to package KDE related software. Now, it is important to mention that Yocto Project is focused on building Linux distributions for embeded devices, not fully-fledged desktop distros. So in this case, using a Debian based distro might be a better approach.

[@guestsneezeplayz]

@@spradotube would you make a tutorial?

[@spradotube]

Cannot promise, but add it to my list!

[@guestsneezeplayz]

@@spradotube i have a few more files than ususal since i added a few more feature : root@archlinux:~# ls buildroot-2024.02 bzImage efi-part rootfs.cpio rootfs.ext2 rootfs.ext3 rootfs.iso9660 rootfs.tar syslinux root@archlinux:~# tar xf rootfs.tar root@archlinux:~#

[@protonspeed]

Hey, hope you are doing well. I was trying to build a buildroot to simply stream a USB camera on HDMI. I have one error that I'm stuck to. /dev/video0 no such file or directory. Either I use vlc to capture, gstreamer , ffmpeg everywhere. I'm making this on my windows using wsl. Can you help me with this? Please

[@spradotube]

Since you don't have /dev/video0, it is possible that your kernel is lacking the camera driver? Or maybe the drivers are built as kernel modules and you need to load them at boot time?

[@protonspeed]

@@spradotube Thanks for the reply. I have installed UVC module from linux configuration. How can i load them at the boot time ?

[@spradotube]

You can use the modprobe command to load the module.

[@protonspeed]

@@spradotube okay will do that and update you soon.

[@jedy90]

Thanks for the tutorial, seems actually easy to start, but I fear it will become arbitrarily complex to actually configure what you want

[@spradotube]

Yeah, that is the price you pay for the flexibility you get.

[@lxw5231]

thank you for this tutorial. I wonder how you connect the console, so you can see the boot process.

[@spradotube]

I am glad you enjoyed it! For the serial console, there is a nice tutorial on the Adafruit website: learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-5-using-a-console-cable/connect-the-lead

[@lxw5231]

@@spradotube thank you so much. I got it work, both on buildroot and yocto. great video!

[@DTimCummings]

Thanks. Great video. May I suggest moving camera image of rpi from bottom right to top left. All the action on the command line is in bottom right corner and obscured by camera. I am using CM4 with eMMC and am interested in file systems or techniques to protect OS from being corrupted if power abruptly removed by an end user. Also I didn't understand your comment that remotely applying updates to off-the-shelf debian is a problem because it seems easier than remotely updating a custom OS?

[@spradotube]

Hi Tim! 1. Thanks for the suggestion about moving the camera. I will make sure the camera does not obscure the commands next time. 2. Thanks for the suggestion on techniques to protect the filesystems from being corrupted. Added to my list of future blog posts/videos. 3. About remotely applying updates to off-the-shelf Debian, I see a few problems. One of the main problems is that people tend to use packages as a mechanism for remote updates. And a package management system (dpkg/apt on Debian based systems) is not atomic. If you interrupt the update in the middle, you might end-up in a situation where you cannot interrupt anymore without manual intervention. There are other challenges as well, like implementing a reliable rollback mechanism. Thanks for the feedback!

[@DTimCummings]

@@spradotube Thanks. That gives me more to think about Debian updates. However, I was actually asking why custom OS from Yocto or Buildroot don't have problems with updates. I don't even know how to do apply updates in those cases.

[@spradotube]

The main reason is that, when you build from sources, you have more control over the logic behind the update system. An update system needs to be fail-safe (atomic) and secure (you need to be able to sign the update artifacts and maybe encrypt the payloads). It needs to be fast and use little network bandwidth (e.g. only download the difference, what has changed). It needs to provide a short downtime (e,g, do the update in the background, while the system is running). Is it not easy to implement all of that with a binary-based Linux distribution. On embedded Linux, there are a few solutions to implement a remote update system, including swupdate, RAUC and Mender. You might want to look at them.

[@DTimCummings]

@@spradotube Wow thanks. That is great info. Yes I will check them out.

[@Bhv-w1g]

Hi Sergio, Thanks for the video, quite insightful. While I was able to follow along and use bitbake, I seem to be facing an issue with compiling the image. The build runs until the very end every time (98% sometimes) and the terminal closes abruptly. To add more info., the following directory “deploy/images/raspberrypi4-64/bootfiles” is generated with files with the following extensions “.bin” “.txt” “.dat” “.stamp” “.elf”. There are no “.wic” files being generated. I’m using Ubuntu - 22.04, kirkstone branch for poky and raspberrypi layer. Kindly seeking your suggestions in this regard. Thanks.

[@spradotube]

Usuallly those abrupt terminal closes are related to the lack of resources. Did you try to build with just a few threads, just to see if that is the case. Just add this to your local.conf file: BB_NUMBER_PARSE_THREADS = "4" BB_NUMBER_THREADS = "4" PARALLEL_MAKE = "-j 2" The build will be slow, but we just want to confirm if it is related to resource usage (i.e. low memory for the amount of threads created by bitbake).

[@Bhv-w1g]

Hi Sergio, Thank you for your reply. I tried troubleshooting it with your suggestion and it resolved the error. Thank you for helping me in my Yocto learning curve.

[@prideproudchild]

CARALHO SERGIO (MEU XARÁ) que vídeo foda pqp.

[@spradotube]

Legal que gostou!

[@hajainaandrialazantsoa9215]

Thank you so much for this video.....How do i do to emulate it on Qemu?I'm trying to load it but i always on a blackscreen

[@spradotube]

Hmmm, haven´t tried to emulate an Rpi image on QEMU yet. It should be doable since QEMU supports it, but not sure about the complete details. If you want to just amulate an image, maybe it is better to just build a qemu image by changing the machine to something like this: MACHINE = "qemuarm"

[@hajainaandrialazantsoa9215]

@@spradotube Yeah I follow Qemu instructions using "qemu-system-arm" but I dont know why i always have a blackscreen😅nothing load....Maybe i missed something

[@TurboElectricUK]

@@hajainaandrialazantsoa9215 It's probably on another console. I think if you type help it will show how to switch.

[@bootoolz]

Congratulations! Very nice demo… I’d like to suggest a demo of how enable and use SPI device via user space like… example how connect MCP251x modules… Anyway thanks…

[@spradotube]

Great, thanks for the feedback!

[@khalidsabri8102]

this sub-window of raspberry board on the video is just so annoying. it blocks the command line

[@spradotube]

Yeah, I understand. Sorry for that. I will make sure to not make the same mistake in future videos. Thanks for the feedback!

[@JarkkoHautakorpi]

Repeatability, to be able to produce same binary after >5 years is a big problem when using normal distros, even LTS. Windows world is even worse, you cant even get a license if some software is obsolete. In embedded industrial world longevity is a must.

[@spradotube]

So true!

[@raghupatrinisaisankarrao9253]

hi sergio, While I am trying to build os using Yocto in Rpi4 as per your inputs, i am facing the issue as mentioned below, please help me to fix this issue thanks. please suggest some website/book to understand the about linux in and out. lcl@lcl-Latitude-5430:~/Desktop/yocto/build$ bitbake core-image-minimal Loading cache: 100% |######################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################| Time: 0:00:00 Loaded 1676 entries from dependency cache. NOTE: Resolving any missing task queue dependencies Build Configuration: BB_VERSION = "2.0.0" BUILD_SYS = "x86_64-linux" NATIVELSBSTRING = "universal" TARGET_SYS = "aarch64-poky-linux" MACHINE = "raspberrypi4-64" DISTRO = "poky" DISTRO_VERSION = "4.0.19" TUNE_FEATURES = "aarch64 armv8a crc cortexa72" TARGET_FPU = "" meta meta-poky = "kirkstone:cbac0f1bfc025d11aea74db16034e9589fbcffa6" meta-raspberrypi = "kirkstone:d7544f35756d87834e8b4bf3e3e733c771d380ae" Initialising tasks: 100% |#################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################| Time: 0:00:01 Sstate summary: Wanted 1118 Local 0 Mirrors 0 Missed 1118 Current 269 (0% match, 19% complete) NOTE: Executing Tasks WARNING: linux-raspberrypi-1_5.15.92+gitAUTOINC+509f4b9d68_14b35093ca-r0 do_fetch: Failed to fetch URL git://github.com/raspberrypi/linux.git;name=machine;branch=rpi-5.15.y;protocol=https, attempting MIRRORS if available ERROR: linux-raspberrypi-1_5.15.92+gitAUTOINC+509f4b9d68_14b35093ca-r0 do_fetch: Fetcher failure: Fetch command export PSEUDO_DISABLED=1; export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS="unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus"; export SSH_AUTH_SOCK="/run/user/1000/keyring/ssh"; export PATH="/home/lcl/Desktop/yocto/build/tmp/sysroots-uninative/x86_64-linux/usr/bin:/home/lcl/Desktop/yocto/sources/poky/scripts:/home/lcl/Desktop/yocto/build/tmp/work/raspberrypi4_64-poky-linux/linux-raspberrypi/1_5.15.92+gitAUTOINC+509f4b9d68_14b35093ca-r0/recipe-sysroot-native/usr/bin/aarch64-poky-linux:/home/lcl/Desktop/yocto/build/tmp/work/raspberrypi4_64-poky-linux/linux-raspberrypi/1_5.15.92+gitAUTOINC+509f4b9d68_14b35093ca-r0/recipe-sysroot/usr/bin/crossscripts:/home/lcl/Desktop/yocto/build/tmp/work/raspberrypi4_64-poky-linux/linux-raspberrypi/1_5.15.92+gitAUTOINC+509f4b9d68_14b35093ca-r0/recipe-sysroot-native/usr/sbin:/home/lcl/Desktop/yocto/build/tmp/work/raspberrypi4_64-poky-linux/linux-raspberrypi/1_5.15.92+gitAUTOINC+509f4b9d68_14b35093ca-r0/recipe-sysroot-native/usr/bin:/home/lcl/Desktop/yocto/build/tmp/work/raspberrypi4_64-poky-linux/linux-raspberrypi/1_5.15.92+gitAUTOINC+509f4b9d68_14b35093ca-r0/recipe-sysroot-native/sbin:/home/lcl/Desktop/yocto/build/tmp/work/raspberrypi4_64-poky-linux/linux-raspberrypi/1_5.15.92+gitAUTOINC+509f4b9d68_14b35093ca-r0/recipe-sysroot-native/bin:/home/lcl/Desktop/yocto/sources/poky/bitbake/bin:/home/lcl/Desktop/yocto/build/tmp/hosttools"; export HOME="/home/lcl"; LANG=C git -c core.fsyncobjectfiles=0 -c gc.autoDetach=false -c core.pager=cat clone --bare --mirror github.com/raspberrypi/linux.git /home/lcl/Desktop/yocto/build/downloads/git2/github.com.raspberrypi.linux.git --progress failed with exit code 128, no output ERROR: linux-raspberrypi-1_5.15.92+gitAUTOINC+509f4b9d68_14b35093ca-r0 do_fetch: Bitbake Fetcher Error: FetchError('Unable to fetch URL from any source.', 'git://github.com/raspberrypi/linux.git;name=machine;branch=rpi-5.15.y;protocol=https') ERROR: Logfile of failure stored in: /home/lcl/Desktop/yocto/build/tmp/work/raspberrypi4_64-poky-linux/linux-raspberrypi/1_5.15.92+gitAUTOINC+509f4b9d68_14b35093ca-r0/temp/log.do_fetch.687420 ERROR: Task (/home/lcl/Desktop/yocto/sources/meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi_5.15.bb:do_fetch) failed with exit code '1' WARNING: squashfs-tools-native-4.5-r0 do_fetch: Failed to fetch URL git://github.com/plougher/squashfs-tools.git;protocol=https;branch=master, attempting MIRRORS if available WARNING: libmodulemd-native-2.14.0-r0 do_fetch: Failed to fetch URL git://github.com/fedora-modularity/libmodulemd;protocol=https;branch=main, attempting MIRRORS if available WARNING: dnf-native-4.11.1-r0 do_fetch: Failed to fetch URL git://github.com/rpm-software-management/dnf.git;branch=master;protocol=https, attempting MIRRORS if available NOTE: Tasks Summary: Attempted 1462 tasks of which 1203 didn't need to be rerun and 1 failed. Summary: 1 task failed: /home/lcl/Desktop/yocto/sources/meta-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi_5.15.bb:do_fetch Summary: There were 4 WARNING messages. Summary: There were 2 ERROR messages, returning a non-zero exit code.

[@spradotube]

It seems the errors are related to network connectivity. Make sure you have Internet access, no firewalls, proxies, etc. About books on the topic, two good ones: www.amazon.com/Embedded-Linux-Development-Using-Project-ebook/dp/B0BRCTY345 www.amazon.com/Mastering-Embedded-Linux-Programming-potential/dp/1789530385

[@raghupatrinisaisankarrao9253]

@@spradotube thanks for books suggestion Reg error: I can access the links via browser

[@vikramjitsingh834]

i have followed all the steps to create image "core-image-full-cmdline-raspberrypi4-64.rootfs-20240419074735.wic.bz2" extracted 'core-image-full-cmdline-raspberrypi4-64.rootfs-20240419074735.wic'. Then copied it to windows machine. Used RPI Imager to flash the microSD card. But the raspberrypi4 (400) is not booting up. It displays the the raspberry images on monitor and then shuts off. Any hints?

[@spradotube]

I would try to access the serial console to check the kernel logs and see if there is a prompt to login and inspect the distro (learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-5-using-a-console-cable/connect-the-lead)

[@vikramjitsingh834]

@@spradotube Thanks. Will try and check

[@goudamm9680]

i am also facing the same issue ,did you fix the issue

[@vikramjitsingh834]

No, the project got depriortized