Working With Yocto

You’re looking for a consultancy with Yocto skills?
Then you probably already know how good this technology is and what it can do for your product. We’d like to help.

Rufilla has created numerous Yocto-based systems for clients since 2012.

Why Adopt Yocto?

We love this Yocto Project Video which says it all 🙂

Training

Courses at Culham
We run friendly and enjoyable Yocto courses at Culham Conference Centre, based in the Science Centre with great facilities and a campus atmosphere.

On Site Training
We will come to you with bespoke on-site training in Yocto usage and customisation. Talk to us and we will customise a course to suit your needs.

Video-based Training
To our clients, we offer a range of clear and effective documentation in Yocto including video based training.

Bespoke Linux Distros

We create customised Yocto-based distributions. These highly documented and standardized distributions are delivered in a understandable format. They are flexible and can be modified and updated over time by either the client or by Rufilla.

Consultancy

We provide innovative and comprehensive advice and consultancy services to clients considering the use of Yocto inside their next product. We are your parachute for Yocto in the development of your new products. We start from your pespective, finding solutions that mean your product shines.

Yocto Expertise

Rufilla is at the heart of this revolution.Rufilla has long experience in creating custom Linux distributions for clients and training in Linux. We have fully adopted Yocto as THE system for device creation.Over the last six years, Rufilla has created Yocto-based customised Linux distributions, or modified and extended distributions, or given training.

Variety

We have developed for a variety of target platforms and product types:ARM Cortex A8, ARM Cortex A9, AM335x, i.MX6, Xilinx Zynq, Broadcom BCM2835… We have created custom distributions for entirely customised products, updated development board distributions, trained in Yocto usage.

Simplicity and Trust

Rufilla is not the average Linux consultancy. It aims for clarity and simplification. Rufilla provides clear, readable, accurate documentation with deliverables plus video training as required. Where Rufilla has customised features, we explain what we have done and why. We focus on Yocto as the standard platform and create systems you can trust.

Integration and Longevity

Rufilla can help you hook your Yocto build up to a continuous integration server, allowing continuous rebuilds of new target images during development.  Yocto is an evolving system.  Rufilla believes that your product should be a platform for the future that evolves over time.  Our distributions are designed to be able to follow advancements in Yocto over time with as few modifications as possible.

Manufacturing

Rufilla has experience in creating production test environments and automatic reprogramming systems for manufacture. These allow Yocto based products to be programmed and tested quickly and automatically.  Auditable test logs are automatically passed from manufacturer to client during production.  Application code can be overlaid in custom meta layers, allowing for the continuous build of single linux final target product images – which can be passed directly to a manufacturer.

We Understand the Power of Yocto!

Yocto has much more power than people normally realise.  We can help you harness the full power of Yocto for your product:

• Kernel module development
• Application development toolkits
• Development builds for remote target debugging
• Package repositories
• Cloud server builds

What is Yocto?

Yocto is a new way of creating custom embedded Linux distributions and target systems for the devices.  It is a distribution builder, providing a consistent base framework for building custom Linux distributions for devices.

Why is it going to change the world? ; )

Before Yocto, Linux-based devices often had entirely hand-build Linux distributions inside them.  This caused lots of issues… including complexity, cost, difficulty in maintenance.  The quality of these distributions was entirely dependent on the skills of an individual creator.  Adding new features (libraries, packages) to these distributions was often complex.  Working with multiple Linux devices involved working with entirely different Linux systems.  Each consultant or development board manufacturer had a different approach which had to be followed exactly.  Changing from one target platform to another could be challenging and expensive for the user.

Enter Yocto

Yocto is a collaboration of key companies in the embedded field, including: Intel, Texas Instruments, AMD, Huawei, Freescale, LG, Dell and Mentor Graphics.  The mission is to create a common base platform for creating custom Linux products.  Yet Yocto itself can be hard to get started with and initially challenging to work with – just one area where Rufilla can help.

Longevity

Yocto is an evolving platform for now and for the future.
Previously, hand-created Linux distributions could stagnate over time, causing security and support issues.  Custom Linux distributions created using Yocto can evolve and advance over time.
Rufilla believes every new Linux-based product should be a product platform which companies can use as a base for the future.

The Layer System

Yocto uses OpenEmbedded Core’s innovative new layer system.  Layers allow extensions and customisation to core layers without the need to change the core layers themselves.  The core layers stay unchanged.
Updates to the core layers can therefore be tested without requiring hand customisations to these layers to be reapplied. This saves work and keeps the core of Yocto standard.

Safety and Reliability

As Yocto is a wide collaboration, security fixes and issues are found and fixed early.For example, when the Heartbleed flaw in OpenSSH was discovered, Yocto fixed all variants of its core system quickly.  A simple rebuild of the Yocto was therefore all that was required.
In a fully custom created Linux systems, a fix such as this would not be an automatic process – time would have to be spent fixing the distro by hand.

Yocto base images are tested for security flaws as part of the standard Yocto testing procedures.  Distributions based on Yocto benefit from this core testing, enabling secure products to be created more easily.