Adding packages to Yocto build

Hello! I have been playing around with a SoCKit, not doing anything too important but really just getting used to it.

I have a current project that I am trying to do which involves a Python script that communicates with FPGA logic via UART.

I've figured out how to activate the second UART in QSys, connect it to FPGA logic, and verified I can access the UART from the default Linux image that shipped with the kit.

Then I downloaded all the stuff to generate the altera-gsrd-image and generated it sucessfully. But that gsrd image didn't include python.

So, I googled around a bit and found that you could add packages to the Yocto build process by adding:

IMAGE_INSTALL_append = " xxx yyy"

in conf/local.conf, where xxx and yyy are packages to install.

So I used that syntax to install a few packages, and that worked. But for some reason, installing python in this manner is not working for me.

I get all the way to the end, and then when running do_rootfs the bitbake script generates an error:

| Unable to resolve package python

| ERROR: some packages were missing

Only I think it knows where to find python: "bitbake python" will finish with no problems. And other packages will work, I only seem to have this problem with python.

Can anyone help me out?

Thank you!