Application Development Overview and Workflow

Some steps are common to any application development effort to create the application and add it to a platform project image.

Application development for a new, non-application package typically consists of the following steps:

  1. Create and build an application. For details, see Creating a Sample Application. If you’re modifying an existing package, you’ll need the package tarball.

  2. Create or obtain a package tarball file. This includes using the source from the application to create package template files and building the application. For details, see:

  3. Test the package installation on a live eLxr 12 image. This includes copying and installing the package. For details, see Testing New and Updated Packages.

  4. Add the package to a repository to share with others.

  5. Install and test the application package. This may include installing the new or updated package on your eLxr 12 image, or installing it on another system altogether to verify cross-compatibility.

Updating an existing upstream source application package comprises many of the steps above, but includes different options for updating or patching the package source. If you need to make changes to an existing application, much of what is described in the previous steps is required.

For example, instead of creating the application from source, you would download and extract the package tarball file. The results is a directory structure with the package source and Makefile as described in Creating a Sample Application. From there you will make changes, such as patching as described in Patching Upstream Source Packages, build, and test the package installation. This iterative process continues until your package is ready.

Using command-line tools, you can work directly in your eLxr 12 image to create or modify packages. For details, see Development Tools Overview and Requirements.

If you prefer to work on your own Linux development host, you can connect remotely to your eLxr 12 image over SSH. With the many available packages, you can set up your image to include tools that allow you to debug the application directly on the target. To connect over SSH, you will need to install the openssh-server package on your eLxr 12 image, for example:

$ apt-get install openssh-server

If you are using an eLxr 12 image with OSTree enabled, before you can perform application development, you must unlock the image rootfs with the following command:

$ ostree admin unlock --hotfix