After using 'bitbake -c populate_sdk <core-image-name>', I get an installer script for the generated SDK.  When running that script I get unexpected errors:

$ bash poky-eglibc-x86_64-i586-toolchain-1.0.sh 
Enter target directory for SDK (default: /opt/poky/1.3): /tmp/jkjk/c
You are about to install the SDK to "/tmp/jkjk/c". Proceed[Y/n]?Y
Extracting SDK...tar: sysroots/qemux86-poky-linux/usr/include/et/com_err.h: Cannot hard link to `./opt/poky/1.3/sysroots/qemux86-poky-linux/usr/include/com_err.h': No such file or directory
tar: sysroots/qemux86-poky-linux/etc/terminfo/v/vt220: Cannot hard link to `./opt/poky/1.3/sysroots/qemux86-poky-linux/etc/terminfo/v/vt200': No such file or directory
tar: sysroots/x86_64-pokysdk-linux/usr/bin/i586-poky-linux/i586-poky-linux-ld: Cannot hard link to `./opt/poky/1.3/sysroots/x86_64-pokysdk-linux/usr/bin/i586-poky-linux/i586-poky-linux-ld.bfd': No such file or directory
tar: sysroots/x86_64-pokysdk-linux/etc/terminfo/v/vt220: Cannot hard link to `./opt/poky/1.3/sysroots/x86_64-pokysdk-linux/etc/terminfo/v/vt200': No such file or directory

bzip2: (stdin): trailing garbage after EOF ignored
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
done

After some investigation, it turns out that my version of GNU tar (1.15.1) doesn't handle the --strip-components option correctly with respect to hard links.  After pulling in a more modern version of GNU tar (1.26), I no longer get the error.

It might be worth doing some sanity checking on the tar version in the script and generating an error before attempting the extraction, or skipping the --strip-components option all together and move the contents after the extraction.

If you need any additional information, please let me know.

Thanks,

Andy