Introducing Moonforge: a Yocto-based Linux OS (Igalia Blog) [LWN.net]

Igalia has announced the Moonforge Linux distribution, based on OpenEmbedded and Yocto.

Moonforge is an operating system framework for Linux devices that simplifies the process of building and maintaining custom operating systems.

It provides a curated collection of Yocto layers and configuration files that help developers generate immutable, maintainable, and easily updatable operating system images.

The goal is to offer the best possible developer experience for teams building embedded Linux products. Moonforge handles the complex aspects of operating system creation, such as system integration, security, updates, and infrastructure, so developers can focus on building and deploying their applications or devices.

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Value added?

Posted Mar 12, 2026 0:44 UTC (Thu) by zhalas (subscriber, #114013) [Link] (3 responses)

I'm looking at:
https://github.com/moonforgelinux/meta-moonforge/tree/main
and don't really see what's the value added on top of Yocto.
It basically takes Yocto and... that's pretty much it, except perhaps some minor tweaks (eg. logo:
https://github.com/moonforgelinux/meta-moonforge/blob/mai...)
Calling this an independent distro at this stage seems to be a stretch.
In the current form I see it as a set of convenience image configurations for Yocto, but maybe I'm missing something.

Value added?

Posted Mar 12, 2026 10:31 UTC (Thu) by ebassi (subscriber, #54855) [Link] (2 responses)

> It basically takes Yocto and... that's pretty much it

It helps getting from step one of the owl drawing (two circles) to step two (the rest of the owl). It's what the original Poky was for OpenEmbedded: a curated set of functionality that is used to build your own product.

> Calling this an independent distro at this stage seems to be a stretch.

It's not "an independent distro": it's a set of convenience functionality on top of Yocto, which takes care of setting up an OS based on an immutable root file system, with support for various update mechanisms and integration with various services.

There's more to come, when it comes to increasing convenience, but it's already pretty usable as it is.

Value added?

Posted Mar 12, 2026 14:24 UTC (Thu) by zhalas (subscriber, #114013) [Link] (1 responses)

> It helps getting from step one of the owl drawing (two circles) to step two (the rest of the owl).

Maybe in the future. At the moment the cost of understanding what it is, what it provides and how this can help in a project is comparable to setting up a new Yocto build from scratch. Especially given that the amount of net new functionality (as opposed to altering existing Yocto functionality) provided by Moonforge is very low:
find -iname "*.bbclass" -or -iname "*.bb"|wc -l
8

> It's not "an independent distro": it's a set of convenience functionality on top of Yocto, which takes care of setting up an OS based on an immutable root file system, with support for various update mechanisms and integration with various services.

I guess my main problem is a bit confusing phrasing used in the project description and release announcement that does not help with understanding what it acutally does.
For me Moonforge is a template[1] for building somewhat opinionated Yocto images that are read-only and support auto-update and it pretty much matches what you said above.

[1] - disregarding the actual technical implementation

Value added?

Posted Mar 12, 2026 17:09 UTC (Thu) by lisandropm (subscriber, #69317) [Link]

Right, I just went trough the documentation and I couldn't avoid feeling like it is similar to Balena (without the payed web services). At the end of the day you also need the vendor's BSP and adjust whatever you might need...