Is there a way to check the exact list of packages that will be installed in the image in Yocto?
yes,
Yocto maintains packages information in a form of manifest file located in /tmp/deploy/images/<"machine_image">/<"image_name">.manifest.
Yes, like this On old Bitbake versions:
bitbake -g <image> && cat pn-depends.dot | grep -v -e '-native' \
| grep -v digraph | grep -v -e '-image' | awk '{print $1}' | sort | uniq
Taken from the NXP Community website
On newer:
bitbake -g <image> && cat pn-buildlist | grep -ve "native" | sort | uniq
You can find the list in the generated .manifest
file.
See IMAGE_MANIFEST