Using metadata

The amount of metadata used by BitBake is enormous. To take the maximum profit out of using Poky, we must master it. As we learned in Chapter 4, Grasping the BitBake Tool, metadata can be classified into the following three major areas:

• Configuration (the .conf files): Configuration files define the global content that is used to provide information and configure how the classes and recipes will work

• Classes (the .bbclass files): Classes are available to the whole system and can be inherited by recipes to easily maintain and avoid code duplication while the recipes describe the tasks to be run and provide the needed information to allow BitBake to generate the needed task chain

• Recipes (the .bb or .bbappend files): Recipes and classes are written in a mix of Python and Shell Scripting code