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

Summary

Flash memory has been the storage technology of choice for embedded Linux from the beginning, and over the years, Linux has gained very good support, from low-level drivers up to flash-aware filesystems, with the latest being UBIFS.

As the rate at which new flash technologies are introduced increases, it is becoming harder to keep pace with the changes at the high end. System designers are increasingly turning to managed flash in the form of eMMC, to provide a stable hardware and software interface that is independent of the memory chips inside. Embedded Linux developers
are beginning to get to grips with these new chips. Support for TRIM in ext4 and F2FS is well-established, and it is slowly finding its way into the chips themselves. Also, the appearance of new filesystems that have been optimized to manage flash, such as F2FS, is a welcome step forward.

However, the fact remains that flash memory is not the same as a hard disk drive. You have to be careful when you...