generic-poky/documentation/sdk-manual/sdk-intro.xml

<!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd"
[<!ENTITY % poky SYSTEM "../poky.ent"> %poky; ] >

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

<section id='sdk-manual-intro'>
    <title>Introduction</title>

    <para>
        Welcome to the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK)
        Developer's Guide.
        This manual provides information that lets you use both the standard
        Yocto Project SDK and an extensible SDK to develop applications and
        images using the Yocto Project.
    </para>

    <para>
        Prior to the 2.0 Release of the Yocto Project, application
        development was primarily accomplished through the use of the
        Application Development Toolkit (ADT) and the availability
        of stand-alone cross-development toolchains and other tools.
        With the 2.1 Release of the Yocto Project, application development
        has transitioned to within a more traditional SDK and extensible
        SDK.
    </para>

    <para>
        A standard SDK consists of a cross-development toolchain that contains
        a compiler, debugger, and various miscellaneous tools; libraries,
        headers, and symbols to match an image; and environment setup script.
        You can use this SDK to independently develop and test code that is
        destined to run on some target machine.
    </para>

    <para>
        An extensible SDK consists of everything that the standard SDK has plus
        tools that allow you to easily add new applications and libraries to
        an image, modify the source of an existing component, test changes on
        the target hardware, and easily integrate an application into the
        the Yocto Project build system.
    </para>
</section>

<section id='sdk-development-model'>
    <title>SDK Development Model</title>

    <para>
        Fundamentally, the SDK fits into the development process as follows:
        <imagedata fileref="figures/sdk-environment.png" align="center" width="6in" depth="5in" scalefit="100" />
        The SDK is installed on any machine and can be used to develop
        applications, images, and kernels.
        An SDK can even be used by a QA Engineer or Release Engineer.
        The fundamental concept is that the machine that has the SDK installed
        does not have to be associated with the machine that has the
        Yocto Project installed.
        A developer can independently compile and test an object on their
        machine and then, when the object is ready for integration into an
        image, they can simply make it available to the machine that has the
        the Yocto Project.
        Once the object is available, the image can be rebuilt using the
        Yocto Project to produce the modified image.
    </para>

    <para>
        The remainder of this manual describes how to use both the standard
        SDK and the extensible SDK.
        Information also exists in appendix form that describes how you can
        build, install, and modify an SDK.
    </para>
</section>

</chapter>
<!--
vim: expandtab tw=80 ts=4
-->