To build and use the buildroot stuff, do the following:
1) run 'make menuconfig' 2) select the packages you wish to compile 3) run 'make' 4) wait while it compiles 5) Use your shiny new root filesystem. Depending on which sort of root filesystem you selected, you may want to loop mount it, chroot into it, nfs mount it on your target device, burn it to flash, or whatever is appropriate for your target system.
You do not need to be root to build or run buildroot. Have fun!
In order to do an offline-build (not connected to the net), fetch all selected source by issuing a $ make source
before you disconnect. If your build-host is never connected, then you have to copy buildroot and your toplevel .config to a machine that has an internet-connection and issue "make source" there, then copy the content of your dl/ dir to the build-host.
Buildroot supports building out of tree with a syntax similar
to the Linux kernel. To use it, add O=
$ make O=/tmp/build
And all the output files (including .config) will be located under /tmp/build.
You can specify a config-file for uClibc: $ make UCLIBCCONFIGFILE=/my/uClibc.config
And you can specify a config-file for busybox: $ make BUSYBOXCONFIGFILE=/my/busybox.config
To use a non-standard host-compiler (if you do not have 'gcc'), make sure that the compiler is in your PATH and that the library paths are setup properly, if your compiler is built dynamically: $ make HOSTCC=gcc-4.3.orig HOSTCXX=gcc-4.3-mine
Depending on your configuration, there are some targets you can use to use menuconfig of certain packages. This includes: $ make HOSTCC=gcc-4.3 linux-menuconfig $ make HOSTCC=gcc-4.3 uclibc-menuconfig $ make HOSTCC=gcc-4.3 busybox-menuconfig
Please feed suggestions, bug reports, insults, and bribes back to the buildroot mailing list: buildroot@buildroot.org