Glossary of Terms

This glossary is intended to be a quick reference guide to terms used throughout the Timesys website and documentation.

BSP

Board Support Package — this is a collection of items required to boot a running system on a particular embedded target board, including:

  • Linux kernel image
  • Device tree binary blob (if necessary)
  • bootloader image(s)
  • RFS image containing packages necessary for running system

Build Directory

Desktop Factory’s build_* directory. Named in the form of build_[arch]-timesys-linux-[libc]. Directory where the bulk of the BSP/SDK build occurs. Packages (including Linux kernel and cross-toolchain components) are extracted, patched, configured, and cross-compiled within the package-specific directories found within the Build Directory. Build output is also generated here in the form of the BSP components (images/) and SDK.

CLib

Acronym for C Library.

Desktop Factory

Timesys Factory build system installed and run on a local host machine.

Device Tree

Data structure used for describing system hardware.

dtc

Device Tree Compiler

dtb

Device Tree Blob

dts

Device Tree Source

dtsi

Device Tree Source Include

Factory

A Timesys Engineering project designed to build platforms. The Factory is driven by a workorder. A workorder should always result in the same platform. There are currently two interfaces to the Factory: Command-line and Web. See also Factory Menuconfig and Factory Web UI.

Factory Menuconfig

The Desktop Factory KConfig UI for setting up your workorder.

Factory Web UI

Timesys Factory build system hosted on Timesys servers and accessed via a web browser.

IDE

Integrated Development Environment

LinuxLink

The Timesys web site that serves as a portal providing access to Timesys products, support, services and content including Timesys Git Repos, meta-timesys layer and documentation.

meta-timesys

Yocto layer that provides scripts for image manifest generation used for security monitoring and notification, customer support, recipe source mirroring, recipe modifications, demos, etc. Some of the features are aimed at Timesys customers with active subscriptions.

NFS

Network File System

Package Recipe

The *.mk file associated with a particular package which provides instructions on a package should be fetched, patched, configured, built, and installed by the Desktop Factory build system. Also included here are any build and runtime dependencies which must be met.

Example: busybox.mk can be reviewed at target/software/System/busybox/busybox.mk within the top-level Factory directory.

RFS

Root File System

SDK

Software Development Kit - This is a collection of items to assist in the development of applications for the embedded target board.

Desktop Factory generates an SDK installer script named in the form of [board]-development-environment.sh (by default) in the Build Directory. Included is the Cross-Toolchain, kernel source tree, and Factory workorder, along with the following components intended for deployment on the target board:

  • kernel images
  • bootloader images
  • RFS
  • device tree blob
  • kernel source
  • toolchain

TimeStorm IDE

Eclipse-based IDE for embedded application- and system-level development (coding), debugging, optimizing and maintaining.

Toolchain

A collection of host tools used in the cross compilation of source code. The factory extends to the toolchain to also include any host utilities and tools that are necessary or pertinent to creating a platform (such as creating filesystem images, debugging, profiling).

TPM

Trusted Platform Module is an international standard for a secure cryptoprocessor, which is a dedicated microcontroller designed to secure hardware by integrating cryptographic keys into devices. TPM technical specification were written by a computer industry consortium called Trusted Computing Group (TCG). International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standardized the specification as ISO/IEC 11889 in 2009.

Workorder

The workorder is another name for the Factory configuration file (.config) found in the top-level directory of a configured Factory.

It contains a list of packages and various configuration options that describes a platform. This includes the toolchain, packages, kernel, and their version and configuration specifications.