Release 2.4 (rocko)

This section provides migration information for moving to the Yocto Project 2.4 Release (codename “rocko”) from the prior release.

Memory Resident Mode

A persistent mode is now available in BitBake’s default operation, replacing its previous “memory resident mode” (i.e. oe-init-build-env-memres). Now you only need to set BB_SERVER_TIMEOUT to a timeout (in seconds) and BitBake’s server stays resident for that amount of time between invocations. The oe-init-build-env-memres script has been removed since a separate environment setup script is no longer needed.

Packaging Changes

This section provides information about packaging changes that have occurred:

  • python3 Changes:

    • The main “python3” package now brings in all of the standard Python 3 distribution rather than a subset. This behavior matches what is expected based on traditional Linux distributions. If you wish to install a subset of Python 3, specify python-core plus one or more of the individual packages that are still produced.

    • python3: The bz2.py, lzma.py, and _compression.py scripts have been moved from the python3-misc package to the python3-compression package.

  • binutils: The libbfd library is now packaged in a separate “libbfd” package. This packaging saves space when certain tools (e.g. perf) are installed. In such cases, the tools only need libbfd rather than all the packages in binutils.

  • util-linux Changes:

    • The su program is now packaged in a separate “util-linux-su” package, which is only built when “pam” is listed in the DISTRO_FEATURES variable. util-linux should not be installed unless it is needed because su is normally provided through the shadow file format. The main util-linux package has runtime dependencies (i.e. RDEPENDS) on the util-linux-su package when “pam” is in DISTRO_FEATURES.

    • The switch_root program is now packaged in a separate “util-linux-switch-root” package for small initramfs images that do not need the whole util-linux package or the busybox binary, which are both much larger than switch_root. The main util-linux package has a recommended runtime dependency (i.e. RRECOMMENDS) on the util-linux-switch-root package.

    • The ionice program is now packaged in a separate “util-linux-ionice” package. The main util-linux package has a recommended runtime dependency (i.e. RRECOMMENDS) on the util-linux-ionice package.

  • initscripts: The sushell program is now packaged in a separate “initscripts-sushell” package. This packaging change allows systems to pull sushell in when selinux is enabled. The change also eliminates needing to pull in the entire initscripts package. The main initscripts package has a runtime dependency (i.e. RDEPENDS) on the sushell package when “selinux” is in DISTRO_FEATURES.

  • glib-2.0: The glib-2.0 package now has a recommended runtime dependency (i.e. RRECOMMENDS) on the shared-mime-info package, since large portions of GIO are not useful without the MIME database. You can remove the dependency by using the BAD_RECOMMENDATIONS variable if shared-mime-info is too large and is not required.

  • Go Standard Runtime: The Go standard runtime has been split out from the main go recipe into a separate go-runtime recipe.

Removed Recipes

The following recipes have been removed:

  • acpitests: This recipe is not maintained.

  • autogen-native: No longer required by Grub, oe-core, or meta-oe.

  • bdwgc: Nothing in OpenEmbedded-Core requires this recipe. It has moved to meta-oe.

  • byacc: This recipe was only needed by rpm 5.x and has moved to meta-oe.

  • gcc (5.4): The 5.4 series dropped the recipe in favor of 6.3 / 7.2.

  • gnome-common: Deprecated upstream and no longer needed.

  • go-bootstrap-native: Go 1.9 does its own bootstrapping so this recipe has been removed.

  • guile: This recipe was only needed by autogen-native and remake. The recipe is no longer needed by either of these programs.

  • libclass-isa-perl: This recipe was previously needed for LSB 4, no longer needed.

  • libdumpvalue-perl: This recipe was previously needed for LSB 4, no longer needed.

  • libenv-perl: This recipe was previously needed for LSB 4, no longer needed.

  • libfile-checktree-perl: This recipe was previously needed for LSB 4, no longer needed.

  • libi18n-collate-perl: This recipe was previously needed for LSB 4, no longer needed.

  • libiconv: This recipe was only needed for uclibc, which was removed in the previous release. glibc and musl have their own implementations. meta-mingw still needs libiconv, so it has been moved to meta-mingw.

  • libpng12: This recipe was previously needed for LSB. The current libpng is 1.6.x.

  • libpod-plainer-perl: This recipe was previously needed for LSB 4, no longer needed.

  • linux-yocto (4.1): This recipe was removed in favor of 4.4, 4.9, 4.10 and 4.12.

  • mailx: This recipe was previously only needed for LSB compatibility, and upstream is defunct.

  • mesa (git version only): The git version recipe was stale with respect to the release version.

  • ofono (git version only): The git version recipe was stale with respect to the release version.

  • portmap: This recipe is obsolete and is superseded by rpcbind.

  • python3-pygpgme: This recipe is old and unmaintained. It was previously required by dnf, which has switched to official gpgme Python bindings.

  • python-async: This recipe has been removed in favor of the Python 3 version.

  • python-gitdb: This recipe has been removed in favor of the Python 3 version.

  • python-git: This recipe was removed in favor of the Python 3 version.

  • python-mako: This recipe was removed in favor of the Python 3 version.

  • python-pexpect: This recipe was removed in favor of the Python 3 version.

  • python-ptyprocess: This recipe was removed in favor of Python the 3 version.

  • python-pycurl: Nothing is using this recipe in OpenEmbedded-Core (i.e. meta-oe).

  • python-six: This recipe was removed in favor of the Python 3 version.

  • python-smmap: This recipe was removed in favor of the Python 3 version.

  • remake: Using remake as the provider of virtual/make is broken. Consequently, this recipe is not needed in OpenEmbedded-Core.

Kernel Device Tree Move

Kernel Device Tree support is now easier to enable in a kernel recipe. The Device Tree code has moved to a kernel-devicetree class. Functionality is automatically enabled for any recipe that inherits the kernel class and sets the KERNEL_DEVICETREE variable. The previous mechanism for doing this, meta/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-dtb.inc, is still available to avoid breakage, but triggers a deprecation warning. Future releases of the Yocto Project will remove meta/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-dtb.inc. It is advisable to remove any require statements that request meta/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-dtb.inc from any custom kernel recipes you might have. This will avoid breakage in post 2.4 releases.

Package QA Changes

The following package QA changes took place:

  • The “unsafe-references-in-scripts” QA check has been removed.

  • If you refer to ${COREBASE}/LICENSE within LIC_FILES_CHKSUM you receive a warning because this file is a description of the license for OE-Core. Use ${COMMON_LICENSE_DIR}/MIT if your recipe is MIT-licensed and you cannot use the preferred method of referring to a file within the source tree.

README File Changes

The following are changes to README files:

  • The main Poky README file has been moved to the meta-poky layer and has been renamed README.poky. A symlink has been created so that references to the old location work.

  • The README.hardware file has been moved to meta-yocto-bsp. A symlink has been created so that references to the old location work.

  • A README.qemu file has been created with coverage of the qemu* machines.

Miscellaneous Changes

The following are additional changes:

  • The ROOTFS_PKGMANAGE_BOOTSTRAP variable and any references to it have been removed. You should remove this variable from any custom recipes.

  • The meta-yocto directory has been removed.

    Note

    In the Yocto Project 2.1 release meta-yocto was renamed to meta-poky and the meta-yocto subdirectory remained to avoid breaking existing configurations.

  • The maintainers.inc file, which tracks maintainers by listing a primary person responsible for each recipe in OE-Core, has been moved from meta-poky to OE-Core (i.e. from meta-poky/conf/distro/include to meta/conf/distro/include).

  • The buildhistory class now makes a single commit per build rather than one commit per subdirectory in the repository. This behavior assumes the commits are enabled with BUILDHISTORY_COMMIT = “1”, which is typical. Previously, the buildhistory class made one commit per subdirectory in the repository in order to make it easier to see the changes for a particular subdirectory. To view a particular change, specify that subdirectory as the last parameter on the git show or git diff commands.

  • The x86-base.inc file, which is included by all x86-based machine configurations, now sets IMAGE_FSTYPES using ?= to “live” rather than appending with +=. This change makes the default easier to override.

  • BitBake fires multiple “BuildStarted” events when multiconfig is enabled (one per configuration). For more information, see the “Events” section in the BitBake User Manual.

  • By default, the security_flags.inc file sets a GCCPIE variable with an option to enable Position Independent Executables (PIE) within gcc. Enabling PIE in the GNU C Compiler (GCC), makes Return Oriented Programming (ROP) attacks much more difficult to execute.

  • OE-Core now provides a bitbake-layers plugin that implements a “create-layer” subcommand. The implementation of this subcommand has resulted in the yocto-layer script being deprecated and will likely be removed in the next Yocto Project release.

  • The vmdk, vdi, and qcow2 image file types are now used in conjunction with the “wic” image type through CONVERSION_CMD. Consequently, the equivalent image types are now wic.vmdk, wic.vdi, and wic.qcow2, respectively.

  • do_image_<type>[depends] has replaced IMAGE_DEPENDS_<type>. If you have your own classes that implement custom image types, then you need to update them.

  • OpenSSL 1.1 has been introduced. However, the default is still 1.0.x through the PREFERRED_VERSION variable. This preference is set is due to the remaining compatibility issues with other software. The PROVIDES variable in the openssl 1.0 recipe now includes “openssl10” as a marker that can be used in DEPENDS within recipes that build software that still depend on OpenSSL 1.0.

  • To ensure consistent behavior, BitBake’s “-r” and “-R” options (i.e. prefile and postfile), which are used to read or post-read additional configuration files from the command line, now only affect the current BitBake command. Before these BitBake changes, these options would “stick” for future executions.