The recipes-rt recipes provide package and image recipes for using and testing the PREEMPT_RT kernel. The core-image-rt*.bb images are minimal images with a couple extra packages, including rt-tests. In order to build the image with the linux-yocto-rt kernel, be sure to include the following line in your local.conf, bblayers.conf, or your $MACHINE.conf. PREFERRED_PROVIDER_virtual/kernel = "linux-yocto-rt" If you are creating a new BSP which should use linux-yocto-rt by default, use the line above in the $MACHINE.conf in your BSP layer, and specify the following in a linux-yocto-rt bbappend recipe: COMPATIBLE_MACHINE_$MACHINE = $MACHINE