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

The art of cross-compiling

Having a working cross toolchain is the starting point of a journey, not the end of it. At some point, you will want to begin cross-compiling the various tools, applications, and libraries that you need on your target. Many of them will be open source packages, each of which has its own method of compiling and its own peculiarities.

There are some common build systems, including the following:

  • Pure makefiles, where the toolchain is usually controlled by the make variable CROSS_COMPILE
  • The GNU build system known as Autotools
  • CMake (https://cmake.org)

Both Autotools and makefiles are needed to build even a basic embedded Linux system. CMake is cross-platform and has seen increased adoption over the years especially among the C++ community. In this section, we will cover all three build tools.

Simple makefiles

Some important packages are very simple to cross-compile, including the Linux kernel, the U-Boot bootloader, and BusyBox...