Yocto Spacelinux Distro

Space-applications embedded Linux distribution for NVIDIA Jetson platforms using Yocto Project tools and the meta-tegra BSP layer. The development of this distribution is part of a master's thesis "Design and simplification of a Linux Operating System (OS) for space". This research is done in the context of the Master of Science program in the field of Electronics - ICT with specialization in software systems at KU Leuven in Leuven, Belgium.

Features

• Stripped and lightweight version of the latest Linux kernels
• Custom power modes for suitable power management in space
• Kernel optimizations for realtime applications
• Optimized, RAID1-enabled btrfs filesystem
• GPT partition table safeguarding
• Extremely fast boottimes to keep uptime high
• swupdate-ready

More information about the features can be found on the Wiki.

Prerequisites

See the Yocto Project Quick Build documentation for information on setting up a build host. This layer has been tested with Ubuntu (22.04 / 24.04) and Fedora (40 / 41) as build host.

Since this distribution is created for NVIDIA Jetson platforms, the meta-tegra layer containing the BSP for the NVIDIA Tegra SoC family also needs to be cloned. Refer to the meta-tegra repository for information on how to properly install this layer. Ensure that the cloned branch of meta-tegra is the same as the installed release of the Yocto Project and is supported by this distro.

Important notes:

• This meta-spacelinux layer is only compatible with the scarthgap, styhead and walnascar release of the Yocto Project/Poky.
• The spacelinux distro only supports boards in the NVIDIA Tegra SoC family, this choice has been made to reduce the size and complexity of the kernel in the context of the research this distro originates from.

Set up

• Clone this repository into the project directory. It is a good practice to create a folder layers and contain all layers in there, including this meta-spacelinux layer.

$ git clone https://github.com/Lander0606/meta-spacelinux/

• Change to a new branch if needed. Other branches support other releases of the Yocto Project.

• Clone the meta-openembedded layer into the layers directory of the project. Some handy applications from this layer are used in the distro. From meta-openembedded, only meta-oe is required.

• Add the meta-spacelinux and meta-oe layer to bblayers.conf in the build directory.

BBLAYERS ?= " \
  <project-dir>/poky/meta \
  <project-dir>/poky/meta-poky \
  <project-dir>/poky/meta-yocto-bsp \
  <project-dir>/layers/meta-tegra \
+ <project-dir>/layers/meta-openembedded/meta-oe \ 
+ <project-dir>/layers/meta-spacelinux \
  "

Images

The spacelinux distribution includes the following image recipe:

Image name	Description
spacelinux-image-base	Base image featuring all device drivers, a cmdline interface and ssh

Issues

Use the Issues tab for reporting build or runtime issues with Spacelinux Yocto build targets. When reporting build or runtime issues, please include as much information about your environment as you can. For example, the target hardware you are building for, branch/version information, etc.