Extend the introduction page

</a>

</div>

Buildroot is a set of Makefiles and patches that makes it easy to generate a

cross-compilation toolchain and root filesystem for your target Linux

system using the <a href= "http://www.uclibc.org/">uClibc C library</a>.

Buildroot is useful mainly for people working with small or embedded

systems.  Embedded systems often use processors that are not the regular

x86 processors everyone is used to using on their PC. It can be PowerPC

processors, MIPS processors, ARM processors, etc.  And to be extra safe,

you do not need to be root to build or run Buildroot.

<p>

Buildroot is maintained by <a href=

"mailto:jacmet@uclibc.org">Peter Korsgaard</a>, and

licensed under the

<p>Buildroot is a set of Makefiles and patches that makes it easy to

generate a complete embedded Linux system. Buildroot can generate any

or all of a cross-compilation toolchain, a root filesystem, a kernel

image and a bootloader image. Buildroot is useful mainly for people

working with small or embedded systems, using various CPU

architectures (x86, ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, etc.) : it automates the

building process of your embedded system and eases the

cross-compilation process.</p>

<p>The major Buildroot features are:</p>

<ul>

  <li>Can <b>handle everything</b> in your embedded system development

  project: cross-compiling toolchain, root filesystem generation,

  kernel image compilation and bootloader compilation. Buildroot is

  also sufficiently flexible that it can also be used for only one or

  several of these steps.</li>

  <li>Is <b>very easy</b> to set up, thanks to its menuconfig and

  xconfig configuration interfaces, familiar to all embedded Linux

  developers. Building a basic embedded Linux system with Buildroot

  typically takes 15-30 minutes.</li>

  <li>Supports <b>several hundreds of packages</b> for userspace

  applications and libraries: X.org stack, Gtk2, Qt, DirectFB, SDL,

  GStreamer and a large number of network-related and system-related

  utilities and libraries are supported.</li>

  <li>Supports <b>multiple filesystem types</b> for the root

  filesystem image: JFFS2, UBIFS, tarballs, romfs, cramfs, squashfs

  and more.</li>

  <li>Can generate an uClibc cross-compilation toolchain, or re-use

  your existing glibc, eglibc or uClibc cross-compilation

  toolchain</li>

  <li>Has a <b>simple structure</b> that makes it easy to understand

  and extend. It relies only on the well-know Makefile language.</li>

</ul>

<p>Buildroot is maintained by <a href=

"mailto:jacmet@uclibc.org">Peter Korsgaard</a>, and licensed under the

<a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html">GNU

GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE V2 (Or later)</a>.

GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE V2 (Or later)</a>. Stable releases are

delivered every three months.</p>

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