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In this episode, we reflect on 2025:

1. Intro and theme

   • Cliff and Khem look back on 2025, focusing on how AI, Zephyr/Yocto, and tooling changed daily engineering work.

2. AI as co-developer

   • Khem shifts from hand-written scripts to delegating tasks to AI as a co‑developer, not an autonomous agent.
   • Cliff adopts terminal-first AI tools (Cloud Code, etc.) for Bash, Ansible, Dockerfiles, and content workflows (newsletter/blog, diagrams).

3. Doc Driven Development workflow

   • Cloud Code plugin: Doc Driven Development, part of Cliff’s Claude plugins: tmpdir-claude-code-marketplace.
   • Workflow: write docs → AI generates plan → review → AI generates code, treating AI like a compiler whose inputs (docs/plans) are versioned.

4. Zephyr and AI-friendly context

   • Work with Zephyr (and West) keeps BSPs and app code in Git repos, making it easy for AI tools to see full build context and outperform GUI‑centric MCU tools with hidden code.
   • Zephyr is expected to become the default RTOS as capable MCUs remain inexpensive.

5. Yoe, Yocto, Jetson, and OTA

   • Jetson Nano and AGX Orin have been added to the Yoe Distribution as reference platforms with swupdate-based OTA and a rootfs+data partitioning strategy aimed at real products, not demos.
   • A rolling-release Yocto model plus meta-tegra’s upstream‑first approach keeps changes small and manageable.
   • Staying close to upstream and ensuring BSP changes land there first is called out as key to long-term maintainability of embedded products.

6. Kas and project structure

   • The Yoe Distro is migrating from shell-based project definitions to Kas for more structured, composable project descriptions and easier reuse/inheritance.

7. Editor and shell stack

   • Helix editor: helix.
   • Yazi file manager: yazi or org: yazi-rs.
   • Lazygit: lazygit.
   • Zellij terminal workspace: zellij.
   • Cliff standardizes on Helix plus Yazi, Lazygit, and Zellij for a fast terminal environment; Khem aliases vi to Helix after finding it better for huge files than Vim-with-plugins.
   • Khem experiments with Nushell’s table-centric pipelines, seeing potential with AI but noting syntax incompatibility with traditional shells.

8. Custom tools: BRun and HFID

   • BRun (Cliff’s project): brun.
   • BRun provides a YAML-defined, local workflow runner (GitHub Actions–like) for native Yocto builds, with chained tasks and smart notifications (emails, Notify.sh, tail logs on failure).
   • HFID is provided as a hosted service (not open source); concept and usage are described at HFID and in posts linked from BEC Systems.

9. Desktops, Omarchy, distros, and servers

   • Khem runs Hyprland tiling on Arch for low-memory build machines while still using KDE elsewhere; Arch makes switching easy at login.
   • Omarchy, DHH’s Arch+Hyprland Arch based distro for developers, is highlighted as a polished, opinionated entry point for new Linux users: omarchy.org.
   • Omarchy is great for people who want a ready-made Arch+Hyprland setup, while vanilla Hyperland is a better fit for experienced users who already have strong preferences.
   • Arch on servers works well when combined with Ansible-based configuration and non-golden-machine practices so systems can be rebuilt quickly if needed.

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In this episode, we discuss with Ted Speers the history of FPGAs and the inclusion of RISC-V technology in Microchip’s latest PolarFire products. Ted is an industry veteran and shares his experiences, including why they chose RISC-V and the resulting benefits. Pay special attention to his general advice starting 1:15:26.

Strategy is not being some smart guy figuring out we are going to do this, this, and this, and it’s all going to work out. Strategy is creating options for yourself. You always want to create optionality. As soon as you get locked into one track, that may lead to failure. So creating optionality, if you are a young person, is what you want to do with your career. One way to create optionality is to meet people. The way you make your own luck is create the options. Then you are in a robust, anti-fragile position.

Ted recommends books by Nassim Nicholas Taleb such as The Black Swan.

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In this episode, we discuss Embedded Linux with the authors of Mastering Embedded Linux Development. Highlights:

• How this book came to be.
• What is new in the fourth edition.
• Development platforms used in the book.
• Common Embedded Linux pitfalls.
• Why Yocto instead of Ubuntu.
• Android in embedded systems.
• And lots more …

If you are interested in Embedded Linux, this book is an excellent reference that covers a lot of topics (710 pages!!!).

You can buy this book at most of the usual places. I got a DRM free version at Packt.

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Clang was recently moved from a seperate layer into oe-core. In this episode Khem shares why this happened and why Clang may be a good fit for your product development.

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Today we catch up with Matt Madison, the maintainer of the meta-tegra layer for NVIDIA Jetson embedded products.

Matt was also on our podcast last year.

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In this episode, we visit with Justin Schneck from Peridio about how Avocado OS is solving various problems in the embedded Linux space. Avocado’s attributes are composability, extensibility, and security. This platform composes embedded runtimes, which seems like a practical alternative to containers at the edge.

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In this episode, we discuss rolling releases, some of the advantages, and how we build the Yoe Distribution, which is a rolling release embedded Linux distro.

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In this episode, we learn:

• how the writing process works for Michael
• how it has affected his career
• The new book Michael is working on to help developers become more effective writers
• Good writers do not necessarily like writing. “I hate writing, but I love having written.”

If you are interested in becoming a better writer, sign up for updates at Refactoring English.

Also check out Michael’s blog.

During the show, Cliff shared a quote from Leslie Lamport:

“If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking.”

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In this episode, we learn about Alex’s work with LLVM on RISC-V. Alex has been involved with RISC-V since it was first released and recently has been focused on making LLVM support better. Alex shares some details about this work, as well as general ideas on how he works. Alex is also the author of the LLVM Weekly Newsletter, which he has published for over 10 years.

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In this episode, we discuss what is simplicity, why does it matter, and how to get there.

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In this episode, we discuss the difference between a product and technology. A couple related blog posts from Khem on this subject:

• Product and platform/technology
• Opensource in context of product and platform/technology - Example

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