path: root/handbook/introduction.xml

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<chapter id='intro'>
<title>Introduction</title>

<section id='intro-what-is'>
    <title>What is Poky?</title>

    <para>

        Poky is an open source platform build tool. It is a complete
        software development environment for the creation of Linux
        devices. It aids the design, development, building, debugging,
        simulation and testing of complete modern software stacks
        using Linux, the X Window System and GNOME Mobile
        based application frameworks. It is based on <ulink
        url='http://openembedded.org/'>OpenEmbedded</ulink> but has
        been customised with a particular focus.

    </para>

    <para> Poky was setup to:</para>

    <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
            <para>Provide an open source Linux, X11, Matchbox, GTK+, Pimlico, Clutter, and other <ulink url='http://gnome.org/mobile'>GNOME Mobile</ulink> technologies based full platform build and development tool.</para>
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
            <para>Create a focused, stable, subset of OpenEmbedded that can be easily and reliably built and developed upon.</para>
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
            <para>Fully support a wide range of x86 and ARM hardware and device virtulisation</para>
        </listitem>
    </itemizedlist>

    <para>
        Poky is primarily a platform builder which generates filesystem images
        based on open source software such as the Kdrive X server, the Matchbox
        window manager, the GTK+ toolkit and the D-Bus message bus system. Images
        for many kinds of devices can be generated, however the standard example
        machines target QEMU full system emulation (both x86 and ARM) and the ARM based
        Sharp Zaurus series of devices. Poky's ability to boot inside a QEMU
        emulator makes it particularly suitable as a test platform for development
        of embedded software.
    </para>

    <para>
        An important component integrated within Poky is Sato, a GNOME Mobile 
        based user interface environment.
        It is designed to work well with screens at very high DPI and restricted
        size, such as those often found on smartphones and PDAs. It is coded with
        focus on efficiency and speed so that it works smoothly on hand-held and
        other embedded hardware. It will sit neatly on top of any device
        using the GNOME Mobile stack, providing a well defined user experience.
    </para>

    <screenshot>
    <mediaobject>
        <imageobject>
            <imagedata fileref="screenshots/ss-sato.png" format="PNG" align='center' scalefit='1' width="100%" contentdepth="100%"/>
        </imageobject>
        <caption>
            <para>The Sato Desktop - A screenshot from a machine running a Poky built image</para>
        </caption>
     </mediaobject>
     </screenshot>


    <para>

    Poky has a growing open source community backed up by commercial support
provided by the principal developer and maintainer of Poky, <ulink url="http://o-hand.com/">OpenedHand Ltd</ulink>.

    </para>
</section>

<section id='intro-manualoverview'>
    <title>Documentation Overview</title>

    <para>
        The handbook is split into sections covering different aspects of Poky. 
        The <link linkend='usingpoky'>'Using Poky' section</link> gives an overview 
        of the components that make up Poky followed by information about using and
        debugging the Poky build system. The <link linkend='extendpoky'>'Extending Poky' section</link> 
        gives information about how to extend and customise Poky along with advice 
        on how to manage these changes. The <link linkend='platdev'>'Platform Development with Poky' 
        section</link> gives information about interaction between Poky and target
        hardware for common platform development tasks such as software development, 
        debugging and profiling. The rest of the manual
        consists of several reference sections each giving details on a specific
        section of Poky functionality.
    </para>

    <para>
        This manual applies to Poky Release 3.1 (Pinky).
    </para>

</section>


<section id='intro-requirements'>
    <title>System Requirements</title>

    <para>
        We recommend Debian-based distributions, in particular a recent Ubuntu 
        release (7.04 or newer), as the host system for Poky. Nothing in Poky is
        distribution specific and
        other distributions will most likely work as long as the appropriate
        prerequisites are installed - we know of Poky being used successfully on Redhat,
        SUSE, Gentoo and Slackware host systems.
    </para>

    <para>On a Debian-based system, you need the following packages installed:</para>

    <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
            <para>build-essential</para>
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
            <para>python</para>
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
            <para>diffstat</para>
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
            <para>texinfo</para>
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
            <para>texi2html</para>
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
            <para>cvs</para>
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
            <para>subversion</para>
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
            <para>wget</para>
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
            <para>gawk</para>
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
            <para>help2man</para>
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
            <para>bochsbios (only to run qemux86 images)</para>
        </listitem>
    </itemizedlist>

    <para>
        Debian users can add debian.o-hand.com to their APT sources (See
        <ulink url='http://debian.o-hand.com'/>
        for instructions on doing this) and then run <command>
        "apt-get install qemu poky-depends poky-scripts"</command> which will
        automatically install all these dependencies. OpenedHand can also provide
        VMware images with Poky and all dependencies pre-installed if required.
    </para>

    <para>
        Poky can use a system provided QEMU or build its own depending on how it's
        configured. See the options in <filename>local.conf</filename> for more details.
    </para>
</section>

<section id='intro-quickstart'>
    <title>Quick Start</title>

    <section id='intro-quickstart-build'>
        <title>Building and Running an Image</title>

        <para>
            If you want to try Poky, you can do so in a few commands. The example below
            checks out the Poky source code, sets up a build environment, builds an
            image and then runs that image under the QEMU emulator in x86 system emulation mode:
        </para>

        <para>
            <literallayout class='monospaced'>
$ wget http://pokylinux.org/releases/purple-3.2.1.tar.gz
$ tar zxvf purple-3.2.1.tar.gz
$ cd purple-3.2.1/
$ source poky-init-build-env
$ bitbake poky-image-sato
$ runqemu qemux86
</literallayout>
        </para>

        <note>
        <para>
            This process will need Internet access, about 3 GB of disk space
            available, and you should expect the build to take about 4 - 5 hours since
            it is building an entire Linux system from source including the toolchain!
        </para>
        </note>

        <para>
            To build for other machines see the <glossterm><link
                    linkend='var-MACHINE'>MACHINE</link></glossterm> variable in build/conf/local.conf.
            This file contains other useful configuration information and the default version
            has examples of common setup needs and is worth 
            reading. To take advantage of multiple processor cores to speed up builds for example, set the 
            <glossterm><link linkend='var-BB_NUMBER_THREADS'>BB_NUMBER_THREADS</link></glossterm>
            and <glossterm><link linkend='var-PARALLEL_MAKE'>PARALLEL_MAKE</link></glossterm> variables.

            The images/kernels built by Poky are placed in the <filename class="directory">tmp/deploy/images</filename>
            directory.
        </para>

        <para>
            You could also run <command>"poky-qemu zImage-qemuarm.bin poky-image-sato-qemuarm.ext2"
            </command> within the images directory if you have the poky-scripts Debian package
            installed from debian.o-hand.com. This allows the QEMU images to be used standalone
            outside the Poky build environment.
        </para>
        <para>
            To setup networking within QEMU see the <link linkend='usingpoky-install-qemu-networking'>
            QEMU/USB networking with IP masquerading</link> section.
        </para>

    </section>
    <section id='intro-quickstart-qemu'>
        <title>Downloading and Using Prebuilt Images</title>

        <para>
            Prebuilt images from Poky are also available if you just want to run the system
            under QEMU. To use these you need to:
        </para>

        <itemizedlist>
            <listitem>
                <para>
                     Add debian.o-hand.com to your APT sources (See
                    <ulink url='http://debian.o-hand.com'/> for instructions on doing this)
                </para>
            </listitem>
            <listitem>
                <para>Install patched QEMU and poky-scripts:</para>
                <para>
                    <literallayout class='monospaced'>
$ apt-get install qemu poky-scripts
</literallayout>
                </para>
            </listitem>

            <listitem>
                <para>
                    Download a Poky QEMU release kernel (*zImage*qemu*.bin) and compressed
                    filesystem image (poky-image-*-qemu*.ext2.bz2) which
                    you'll need to decompress with 'bzip2 -d'. These are available from the
                    <ulink url='http://pokylinux.org/releases/blinky-3.0/'>last release</ulink>
                    or from the <ulink url='http://pokylinux.org/autobuild/poky/'>autobuilder</ulink>.
                </para>
            </listitem>
            <listitem>
                <para>Start the image:</para>
                <para>
                    <literallayout class='monospaced'>
$ poky-qemu &lt;kernel&gt; &lt;image&gt;
</literallayout>
                </para>
            </listitem>
        </itemizedlist>

        <note><para>
            A patched version of QEMU is required at present. A suitable version is available from 
            <ulink url='http://debian.o-hand.com'/>, it can be built 
            by poky (bitbake qemu-native) or can be downloaded/built as part of the toolchain/SDK tarballs.
        </para></note>

    </section>
</section>

<section id='intro-getit'>
    <title>Obtaining Poky</title>

    <section id='intro-getit-releases'>
        <title>Releases</title>

        <para>Periodically, we make releases of Poky and these are available
            at <ulink url='http://pokylinux.org/releases/'/>.
            These are more stable and tested than the nightly development images.</para>
    </section>

    <section id='intro-getit-nightly'>
        <title>Nightly Builds</title>

        <para>
            We make nightly builds of Poky for testing purposes and to make the
            latest developments available. The output from these builds is available
            at <ulink url='http://pokylinux.org/autobuild/'/>
            where the numbers increase for each subsequent build and can be used to reference it.
        </para>

        <para>
            Automated builds are available for "standard" Poky and for Poky SDKs and toolchains as well 
            as any testing versions we might have such as poky-bleeding. The toolchains can
            be used either as external standalone toolchains or can be combined with Poky as a
            prebuilt toolchain to reduce build time. Using the external toolchains is simply a
            case of untarring the tarball into the root of your system (it only creates files in
            <filename class="directory">/usr/local/poky</filename>) and then enabling the option 
            in <filename>local.conf</filename>.
        </para>

    </section>

    <section id='intro-getit-dev'>
        <title>Development Checkouts</title>

        <para>
            Poky is available from our GIT repository located at
            git://git.pokylinux.org/poky.git; a web interface to the repository
            can be accessed at <ulink url='http://git.pokylinux.org/'/>.
        </para>

        <para>
           The 'master' is where the deveopment work takes place and you should use this if you're
           after to work with the latest cutting edge developments. It is possible trunk
           can suffer temporary periods of instability while new features are developed and
           if this is undesireable we recommend using one of the release branches.
        </para>
    </section>

</section>

</chapter>
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