The first thing you need to do is set up the OpenEmbedded build environment by sourcing the environment setup script as follows:

     $ source oe-init-build-env [build_dir]
            

The build_dir is optional and specifies the directory the OpenEmbedded build system uses for the build - the Build Directory. If you do not specify a Build Directory it defaults to build in your current working directory. A common practice is to use a different Build Directory for different targets. For example, ~/build/x86 for a qemux86 target, and ~/build/arm for a qemuarm target. See oe-init-build-env for more information on this script.

Once the build environment is set up, you can build a target using:

     $ bitbake <target>
            

The target is the name of the recipe you want to build. Common targets are the images in meta/recipes-core/images, /meta/recipes-sato/images, etc. all found in the Source Directory. Or, the target can be the name of a recipe for a specific piece of software such as busybox. For more details about the images the OpenEmbedded build system supports, see the "Images" chapter.