Yocto / OpenEmbedded
Upstream architecture
Build system
Needs some effort
Bottom line
Aimed at industrial/production use; hobbyists should start with Armbian or Buildroot instead.
- Based on
- Built from source (BitBake + oe-core + meta-riscv)
- Upstream
- Build system: oe-core ships the qemuriscv32/qemuriscv64 machines and a riscv64 tune; concrete boards come from the official RISC-V layer meta-riscv (under the riscv/ org), which provides the machine configs.
- Versions
- 6.1 Blacksail (current series) · 6.0 Wrynose (LTS, supported until 2030-04)
- Doc languages
- en
- Derivatives
- Vendor Yocto BSPs from SpacemiT / StarFive / T-Head follow the oe-core + meta-riscv pattern
- Checked
- 2026-11-01
Boards
- QEMU virt (virtual machine) Official Native qemuriscv64/qemuriscv32 in oe-core
- Banana Pi BPI-F3 (SpacemiT K1) Community meta-riscv's bananapi-f3 (mainline kernel/U-Boot, still needs the vendor FSBL)
- SpacemiT K3 (Pico-ITX / CoM260) Community meta-riscv's k3-com260 / k3-pico-itx (including -mainline variants)
- LicheePi 4A Community meta-riscv's licheepi-4a
- StarFive VisionFive 2 Community meta-riscv's visionfive2
- Orange Pi RV2 (Ky X1) Community meta-riscv's orangepi-rv2 (mainline kernel/U-Boot + vendor FSBL)
- Zhihe A210 (XuanTie MelonPi dev board) Community meta-riscv's zhihe-a210: OSU-OSL mainline kernel, TFTP netboot only, no bootloader recipe
Download
Docs and videos
Pitfalls
- Steepest learning curve: BitBake syntax plus layer versions that must match exactly (meta-riscv tracks master)
- The first build downloads tens of GB and takes hours
- No ready-made images; you produce the wic/sdimg yourself
- The vendor FSBL/TEE still has to be obtained separately — a purely open-source flow won't work
RuyiSDK test reports4
Hands-on records from RuyiSDK, board by board. Open a report for the full install steps and verdict.
| Boards | Status | Versions | Last tested | Report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Milk-V Duo series (Duo / Duo 256M / Duo S) | ◐ Basic | — | 2024-11-25 | Open report |
| Milk-V Duo series (Duo / Duo 256M / Duo S) | ◐ Basic | — | 2024-11-25 | Open report |
| SiFive HiFive Premier P550 | ◌ Needs verification | — | 2025-04-09 | Open report |
| STAR64 | ◐ Basic | — | 2025-07-13 | Open report |
Status meanings: good — fully usable (desktop boots); basic — basic system (serial console works); part — partial functionality; cft — image exists, needs verification; cfh — documented as supported but fails to boot; cfi — claimed supported, no image; wip — announced only.
Sources9
- yoctoproject.org/development/releases/
- docs.yoctoproject.org/brief-yoctoprojectqs/index.html
- github.com/riscv/meta-riscv/blob/master/docs/QUICK_START.md
- github.com/riscv/meta-riscv
- matrix.ruyisdk.org/reports/Duo/Yocto/README/
- matrix.ruyisdk.org/reports/Duo256m/Yocto/README/
- matrix.ruyisdk.org/reports/Premier_P550/Yocto/REAMDE/
- matrix.ruyisdk.org/reports/STAR64/Yocto/README/
- matrix.ruyisdk.org/
The full source list and how each claim is judged: Sources