All you need to know to use Open Embedded and the Yocto Project to build your custom embedded Linux images.
Overview
Everything you need to know to build your custom Linux system images for your own hardware. Learn how to create your own layers to reuse and override hardware vendor and community provided layers, just providing what is specific to your project.
In case you wish to support images for different targets, the Yocto Project will enable you to cleanly separate your hardware customizations, your distribution policies and the sets of applications you want to use.
The Yocto project also offers binary reproducibility, vulnerability analysis and Software Bill of Materials, and will also help you to develop your own recipes and debug the system.
Using progressive but challenging practical labs and varied techniques to make the learning always stimulating and fun, and above all to make it stick. At least 75% of the time is dedicated to practical activities. Learn by doing!
You may also be interested in taking our 1-day Yocto Project Overview Seminar first.
Target audience
- Engineers developing products based on embedded Linux.
- Field Application Engineers working for silicon and board manufacturers, developing and supporting Yocto Board Support Packages (BSP) for their customers.
- Team leaders and decision makers who want to understand the tools their teams are using and their possibilities.
- Hobbyists and students interested in developing their embedded Linux skills.
Expected benefits
- Reduced product development cost by leveraging features from the Yocto ecosystem: tooling, recipes for thousands or components, vulnerability assessments…
- Enjoy all the possibilities of your hardware and of the Linux kernel.
- Learn how to be independent from your BSP vendor.
- Enjoy up to 4 years of bug fix and vulnerability updates.
Description
| Delivery | In-person (all continents) or online, public or private session |
| Language | English or French |
| Mix | 25% theory – 75% practical activities – Learn by doing! |
| Duration | 4 days (in-person), 24 hours (online) |
| Hardware | BeaglePlay board with TI Sitara AM625 SoC (ARM64) |
| Yocto Project version | 5.0 (Scarthgap LTS) used in practical labs |
| Prerequisites | Familiarity with the Linux command line – understanding low-level details about Embedded Linux will help but isn’t a strict requirement. |
Upcoming sessions (in-person and online)
| Trainer | Dates | Cost | Register |
| Michael Opdenacker | Apr. 14-16, 22-24, Online 15:00 to 19:00 UTC+2 Seats left | 1,990 EUR or 2,190 USD 1, 2 |  |
| Michael Opdenacker | Sep. 9-12, 2025, Avignon, France 32 hours – 9:00 to 18:00 Seats left | 2,490 EUR or 2,690 USD + 20% V.A.T. 3 | |
Also available on-line or through private sessions worldwide. Ask us for a quote.
1 Individuals (all countries, not paying through a company) are subject to + 20% V.A.T. However, we offer a discount on the base cost to cancel the impact of V.A.T. and keep the same total price.
2 Only for French companies: + 20% V.A.T.
3 + 20% V.A.T. is mandatory for everyone attending a public course in France. See 1 for individuals.
Available discounts
The below discounts can be combined, up to a limit of 400 EUR / 440 EUR per participant.
- 200 EUR / 220 USD returning participant discount for any extra course taken by the same participant at most 12 months after another one.
- 200 EUR / 220 USD early bird discount for any registration at least 2 months before the session dates.
- 200 EUR / 220 USD extra participant discount for each participant from the same entity (same invoicing address) in addition to the first one.
If V.A.T. is applicable, it applies to the amounts before V.A.T.
Private sessions
This course can be taught in a private session anywhere in the world, either in your company’s premises or online.This offers more privacy and allows for customization options.
Agenda
Part 1: Introduction, Concepts, Standard Usage
- Demo: Build an embedded Linux image for a different board and boot it.
- General introduction to embedded Linux and build systems.
- History of OpenEmbedded and the Yocto Project.
Roles of the various components: OpenEmbedded, Poky, Yocto. - Project goals, release cycles, governance, features, example projects.
- Terminology: recipes, layers, images, machines, distributions, packages, metadata.
- Setting up the environment. Supported host distributions, required tools.
- BitBake build orchestrator: usage and features.
- Build and boot your first image based on the Poky reference distribution.
- Exploring logs and build outputs.
- Variables, syntax, scope and overrides. How to trace and debug variable values.
Part 2: Working with Recipes and Layers
- Structure of recipes. Tasks, dependencies. Source fetching and other important tasks. Extending and overriding existing recipes.
- Classes: “recipe” and “global” classes.
- Various types of Yocto layers. Using multiple layers and creating new ones.
- BSP layers and machine definitions. Building the bootloader and kernel. Bootloader, kernel and device tree customization.
- Distro layers. Toolchain definition.
- Defining images. Package features.
- Defining packages in recipes. Runtime and build time dependencies.
Part 3: Advanced Yocto Usage and Deployment
- Optimizing builds: shared state cache, hash equivalence, limiting disk and CPU usage.
- Generating and executing a Yocto Software Development Kit (SDK).
- Using devtool to create, modify and test recipes.
- Package sanity and image testing.
- Generating and publishing package feeds. Adding and updating software at run time.
- License compliance and Software Bill or Materials.
- Checking for vulnerabilities.
- Binary reproducibility
- Layer management software (Kas, Repo).
- Best practices for maintaining a project using Yocto.
- Further Yocto Project resources.
Part 4: Challenges
- Fix a broken system with multiple types of bugs.
- Build and boot a system with support for A/B updates.
- Optimize the boot time of a Yocto built embedded system.
What is provided?
| In-person public sessions | In-person private sessions | Online public sessions | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electronic board and all its required accessories, for the duration of the course | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Lunch, morning and afternoon breaks | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Electronic copies of the lecture and practical lab materials. | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Solutions to practical labs | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Video recordings of the lectures from the trainer. | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Electronic training certificate, after successful completion of the course, which can be shared on your LinkedIn profile and on other social media. | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
What’s special in our courses?
Majority of practical activities, representing at least 75% of learning time.
Short lectures only: sequences of theory never exceed 30 minutes, and are interleaved with quick or longer practice. Too long series of lectures are hard to digest, especially in an online setting.
Technical and teaching experience: courses taught by an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in embedded Linux and 30 years using and advocating for Free and Open Source Software.
See also: Why choose Root Commit courses?
FAQ
Q: Will I get solutions to the practical labs?
A: Yes, solutions for the files to create or modify are shared at the end of each lab.
Q: In-house sessions: can practical labs be run on the CPU that my project uses?
A: The Linux kernel and the Yocto Project try to offer the same mechanisms for all types of hardware, so most of what you learn on another platform should apply on other ones as well. However, bootloader and kernel settings can be platform specific, so it can help participants to gain practical experience on the hardware platform they will work on. So, porting our practical labs to different hardware should be possible, if you are ready to accept additional preparation costs.
See also our FAQ for all types of courses and our sustainability efforts.