Creating just the right Linux platform or BSP / SDK for your embedded Linux project is critical to build products that meet your performance, file size, flexibility and continued supportability goals. Traditionally, this has been a non-trivial task because embedded Linux developers only had two extreme choices for building a custom platform: build from scratch (roll your own) or build by stripping down from a pre-built distribution. Timesys Factory Custom Platform Builder provides a solution that combines the best of both of these approaches.

• Build from Scratch (roll your own) — While this approach provides maximum flexibility and control, it is the most risky because it requires extensive Linux experience and a lot of time to ensure everything works not just today but in the future as well.
• Build by ‘Stripping Down’ from a Pre-built Distribution — Developers purchase or acquire a pre-built distribution from one of many sources and then customize it to suit their needs. No Linux distribution installs every package that you want and in all cases, they install many unneeded packages too, thus taking up excess disk space. As a result, developers have to spend a lot of time removing/adding software from these distributions to make them just right for their particular application. This ‘stripping down’ approach is time consuming and creates the well-known ‘dependency hell’ and time drain in making all the new combinations of software work. In addition, in the case of commercial distributions, the vendors often restrict or limit support once the distributions have been customized.
• Build “Bottom Up” with a Modular Platform Builder — Timesys Factory is based on a modular ‘bottoms up’ architecture that ensures you won't install the software and libraries you don't need to begin with. Factory provides easy-to-use, modular building blocks that result in flexibility and enables you to quickly build just the right platform or BSP / SDK — without the complexity and time involved in both ‘the roll your own’ scenario and the stripping down of a large distribution.

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Factory™ Platform Builder Benefits

• Easily build custom BSPs / SDKs or distributions — While there are many open source options for building platforms and/or BSPs / SDKs, most are either easy, or flexible, but not both. Timesys Factory combines ease-of-use with a highly modular architecture to enable developers to successfully build custom platforms or BSPs / SDKs in hourss.
• Efficient — Start small, build up. Start small with kernel, toolchain, minimal RFS and then add just the packages you need. This approach is much simpler than ‘stripping down’ and far easier to build, test and debug.
• Extensible — Easily customize your software stack by adding external software such as packages, device drivers, libraries and your application code to your platform alike.
• Reproducible, consistent builds from source — Factory allows developers to consistently recreate old builds for the purpose of regression testing and incremental development.
• Easy to integrate into an existing environment — Factory uses all the common Linux commands (make, shell scripts, etc), so it can be easily incorporated into a larger build system. Additionally, Factory can fetch code from any source including file servers and version control systems.

Factory™ Platform Builder Features
Build from Sources		Provides maximum flexibility and customization
Integrate Custom Applications		Add custom applications easily to RFS or your platform
Advice Engine		Goes beyond identifying dependencies to analyze your configuration, identify possible problems, and often suggest a corrective action
Update Engine		Automatically push relevant updates info and successfully integrate updates
Industry-standard Components		Uses community standard, familiar software infrastructure (kconfig and make)
Support for All Architectures		ARM, Power, MIPS, x86, etc.
Support for Various C Libraries		uClibc, glibc, eglibc, klibc
Interface Choice		Powerful combination of both command line and GUI wizard provide maximum ease of use and flexibility
Package Management		Choose from popular package managers (RPM, DEB as well as tar balls)
Timesys Source Code Repository		Access to old versions available even if removed from upstream
Team Development		Create an installable SDK with your custom toolchain

		Learn more about the Factory Platform Builder architecture.
		Learn more about the LinuxLink PRO Edition.
		View Demos.
		Have questions? Call us at 1.866.392.4897 or at +1.412.232.3250 or send us your question — we usually reply back to you within a few hours.