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

GDB user interfaces

GDB is controlled at a low level through the GDB machine interface, GDB/MI, which can be used to wrap GDB in a user interface or as part of a larger program, and it considerably extends the range of options available to you.

In this section, I will describe three that are well suited to debugging embedded targets:
the Terminal User Interface (TUI), the Data Display Debugger (DDD), and Visual
Studio Code.

Terminal User Interface

Terminal User Interface (TUI) is an optional part of the standard GDB package. The main feature is a code window that shows the line of code about to be executed, together with any breakpoints. It is a definite improvement on the list command in command-line mode GDB.

The attraction of TUI is that it just works without any extra setup, and since it is in text mode, it is possible to use over an SSH terminal session, for example, when running gdb natively on a target. Most cross toolchains configure GDB with TUI. Simply add -tui...