About the Yocto Project
It's not an embedded Linux distribution – it creates a custom one for you.
The Yocto Project™ is an open source collaboration project that provides templates, tools and methods to help you create custom Linux-based systems for embedded products regardless of the hardware architecture.
http://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/yocto-quick-start/yocto-project-qs.html
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Using Pre-Built Binaries and QEMU
If hardware, libraries and services are stable you can get started by using a pre-built binary of the image, kernel and toolchain and run it using the emulator QEMU. This scenario is useful for developing application software.
Using a Pre-Built Image
For this scenario you need to do several things:
- Install the stand-alone Yocto toolchain tarball.
- Download the pre-built kernel that will boot with QEMU. You need to be sure to get the QEMU image that matches your target machine’s architecture (e.g. x86, ARM, etc.).
- Download the filesystem image for your target machine's architecture.
- Set up the environment to emulate the hardware and then start the QEMU emulator.
