Yocto Project
| Yocto Project | |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 2010 |
| Stable release | 5.3 (Whinlatter)
/ December 2025 |
| Written in | Primarily Python, Shell |
| Website | yoctoproject |
| Repository | |
The Yocto Project is a Linux Foundation collaborative open source project whose goal is to produce tools and processes that enable the creation of Linux distributions for embedded and IoT software that are independent of the host hardware architecture, supports customization and results in repeatable output. The toolset managed by the project, commonly called yocto, consists of interoperable tools, metadata, and processes. The project was announced by the Linux Foundation in 2010 and launched in March, 2011, in collaboration with 22 organizations, including OpenEmbedded.
The Yocto and OpenEmbedded projects share maintenance of BitBake (build engine) and OpenEmbedded-Core (core metadata). Yocto provides a reference implementation called Poky, which contains the OpenEmbedded build system plus a large set of recipes, arranged in hierarchical layers, that can be used as a template for a customized, embedded operating system.
In addition to building a Linux system, yocto provides other, related features. It can generate a toolchain for cross compilation and a software development kit (SDK) tailored to a hardware environment. It supports package creation in a variety of formats including deb, rpm, or ipk. Within builds, there are options for various build-time sanity/regression tests, and also the option to boot and test certain images under QEMU to validate the build.
The project encourages interaction with upstream projects and has contributed heavily to OpenEmbedded-Core and BitBake as well as to numerous upstream projects, including the Linux kernel. The resulting images are typically useful in systems where embedded Linux would be used, these being single-use focused systems or systems without the usual screens/input devices associated with desktop Linux systems.
There are several other sub-projects under the project umbrella which include CROPS, pseudo, the matchbox suite of applications, and many others. One of the central goals of the project is interoperability among these tools.
In October 2018, Arm Holdings partnered with Intel in order to share code for embedded systems through the Yocto Project.