A bitbake recipe is a set of instructions that describes what needs to be done to retrieve the source code for some application, apply any necessary patches, provide any additional files (such as init scripts), compile it, install it and generate binary packages. The end result is a binary package that you can install on your target device, and maybe some intermediate files, such as libraries and headers, which can be used when building other applications.

In many ways the process is similar to creating .deb or .rpm packages for your standard desktop distributions with one major difference - in OpenEmbedded everything is being cross-compiled. This often makes the task far more difficult (depending on how well suited the application is to cross compiling), than it is for other packaging systems and sometimes impossible.

This chapter assumes that you are familiar with working with bitbake, including the work flow, required directory structures and bitbake configuration. If you are not familiar with these then first take a look at the chapter on bitbake usage.