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Qt

Running Wayland Clients as Non-Root Users

Many embedded Linux systems use a Wayland compositor like Weston for window management. Qt applications act as Wayland clients. Weston composes the windows of the Qt applications into a single window and displays it on a screen. I still have to find a Yocto layer that does not start Qt applications as root. This violates the cybersecurity principle that every application should only run with the least privileges possible. Let us figure out how to run Qt applications as non-root users and make our system more secure.

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A Yocto Recipe for Qt Applications Built with CMake

How hard can it be to write a Yocto recipe for building a Qt application with CMake? Actually, it turns out to be pretty hard. I have seen my fair share of slow-and-dirty workarounds (nothing is ever quick with Yocto, not even the diry workarounds) how to force the Qt application into the Linux image and onto the device. Over the years, I turned my own slow-and-dirty workarounds into a hopefully quick-and-clean solution. Here it comes.

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Using Qt 6 under LGPLv3

The Qt Company changed Qt licensing in February 2022. All the separate commercial packages – including Qt for MCU, Qt Safe Renderer, Qt Automotive Suite and Qt Automation – were folded into two Qt for Device Creation licenses: Professional and Enterprise. The Qt Marketplace license for modules like CoAP, MQTT, Charts and for the design tool bridges was discontinued. My post helps you answer the crucial question: Shall you use Qt Commercial or Qt LGPL-3.0?

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Creating A Custom Yocto Layer

After having built the reference Linux image from a SoM, SoC or terminal maker and having run it on the board, we must inevitably custom-tailor this image to our needs. We must create our own Yocto layer. We must remove all the unnecessary packages and make our core application start automatically on power-up. Here is a step-by-step guide how to turn the application layer for a Toradex Verdin iMX8M Plus board into our own custom layer. The guide should also work for other boards.

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