poky

Poky is the reference distribution and build system of the Yocto Project, an open source initiative for creating custom Linux distributions for embedded devices. It provides a complete, self-contained environment for building Linux images, including the core metadata, BitBake build tool, and example images that serve as a starting point for custom deployments.

Poky originated within the OpenEmbedded project and became the Yocto Project’s reference distribution to standardize development workflows across different hardware targets. The Poky repository contains the core metadata and tooling that other layers in the Yocto ecosystem build upon. It is maintained by the Yocto Project community and closely aligned with the project’s release cycle, with each Yocto release providing a compatible Poky baseline.

Key components of Poky include BitBake, a task execution engine used to parse and execute metadata recipes; and a set of metadata layers, such as meta-poky, meta-oe, and meta-python, which define how software is fetched, configured, and assembled into images. Poky also provides core image recipes (for example, core-image-minimal) and developer tools, along with a reference toolchain and filesystem layouts.

Working with Poky typically involves setting up a build environment via scripts like oe-init-build-env, configuring layers in conf/bblayers.conf and build options in local.conf, and invoking BitBake to produce images. Built results, including images and deployment artifacts, are placed in the build directory and can be adapted for various architectures through additional layers and machine configurations.

Poky serves as a widely used, community-driven foundation for reproducible embedded Linux development, enabling customization through layered metadata and standardized build processes.