Book Image

Mastering Embedded Linux Programming - Third Edition

By : Frank Vasquez, Chris Simmonds
5 (3)
Book Image

Mastering Embedded Linux Programming - Third Edition

5 (3)
By: Frank Vasquez, Chris Simmonds

Overview of this book

If you’re looking for a book that will demystify embedded Linux, then you’ve come to the right place. Mastering Embedded Linux Programming is a fully comprehensive guide that can serve both as means to learn new things or as a handy reference. The first few chapters of this book will break down the fundamental elements that underpin all embedded Linux projects: the toolchain, the bootloader, the kernel, and the root filesystem. After that, you will learn how to create each of these elements from scratch and automate the process using Buildroot and the Yocto Project. As you progress, the book will show you how to implement an effective storage strategy for flash memory chips and install updates to a device remotely once it’s deployed. You’ll also learn about the key aspects of writing code for embedded Linux, such as how to access hardware from apps, the implications of writing multi-threaded code, and techniques to manage memory in an efficient way. The final chapters demonstrate how to debug your code, whether it resides in apps or in the Linux kernel itself. You’ll also cover the different tracers and profilers that are available for Linux so that you can quickly pinpoint any performance bottlenecks in your system. By the end of this Linux book, you’ll be able to create efficient and secure embedded devices using Linux.
Table of Contents (27 chapters)
1
Section 1: Elements of Embedded Linux
10
Section 2: System Architecture and Design Decisions
18
Section 3: Writing Embedded Applications
22
Section 4: Debugging and Optimizing Performance

Decomposing Yocto's architecture and workflow

Yocto is a complex beast. Taking it apart is the first step toward understanding it. The architecture of a build system can be organized in terms of its workflow. Yocto gets its workflow from the OpenEmbbedded project, which it is based on. Source materials feed into the system as inputs by way of metadata in the form of BitBake recipes. The build system uses this metadata to fetch, configure, and compile the source code into binary package feeds. These individual output packages are assembled inside a staging area before the finished Linux image and SDK are generated, complete with a manifest that includes a license for each package that's on board:

Figure 8.1 – OpenEmbedded architecture workflow

Figure 8.1 – OpenEmbedded architecture workflow

Here are the seven steps of Yocto's build system workflow, as shown in the
preceding diagram:

  1. Define layers for policy, machine, and software metadata.
  2. Fetch sources from the source...