Generic systems
The generic x86-64 and aarch64 targets, for PCs and other systems that boot with UEFI.
Two targets are not made for one board, but for any system that boots with UEFI.
| Target | Build target | For |
|---|---|---|
| Generic x86-64 | generic_x86_64 |
Mini PCs, like an Intel NUC, and other 64-bit x86 computers |
| Generic aarch64 | generic_aarch64 |
64-bit Arm systems with UEFI, and Arm virtual machines |
Both use GRUB, a GPT partition table, and the mainline Linux kernel. Their board files are in buildroot-external/board/pc/ and buildroot-external/board/arm-uefi/.
- A 64-bit CPU of the right architecture
- UEFI boot, with secure boot turned off
- A disk the kernel supports, like SATA, NVMe, or eMMC
- A supported network card
The x86-64 kernel includes the common Intel and Realtek Ethernet drivers, and Intel Wi-Fi with its firmware. Bluetooth on Intel Wi-Fi cards works. Other hardware depends on what the kernel configuration includes: buildroot-external/kernel/ and the kernel.config in the board folder.
There is no installer. You write the image to the internal disk:
- Boot the computer into a live Linux system, from USB or the network.
- Download or copy the image, and unpack it with
unxz. - Write it to the internal disk, with
ddor a tool like balenaEtcher. - Reboot.
On first boot, the data partition grows to fill the disk.
The x86-64 image uses the screen as its console. If a system shows no console output, adding nomodeset to cmdline.txt on the boot partition can help. The aarch64 image also has a serial console on ttyS0.
Besides the disk image, the aarch64 target builds virtual disk images (VMDK, VDI, and QCOW2), for virtual machines on Arm hosts. The virtual machine page covers the requirements, they are the same.