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

What is real time?

The nature of real-time programming is one of the subjects that software engineers love to discuss at length, often giving a range of contradictory definitions. I will begin by setting out what I think is important about real time.

A task is a real-time task if it has to complete before a certain point in time, known as the deadline. The distinction between real-time and non-real-time tasks is shown by considering what happens when you play an audio stream on your computer while compiling the Linux kernel. The first is a real-time task because there is a constant stream of data arriving at the audio driver, and blocks of audio samples have to be written to the audio interface at the playback rate. Meanwhile, the compilation is not real-time because there is no deadline. You simply want it to complete as soon as possible; whether it takes 10 seconds or 10 minutes does not affect the quality of the kernel binaries.

The other important thing to consider is the...