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

Building the kernel

Having decided which kernel to base your build on, the next step is to build it.

Getting the source

All three of the targets used in this book, the Raspberry Pi 4, BeagleBone Black, and the ARM Versatile PB, are well supported by the mainline kernel. Therefore, it makes sense to use the latest long-term kernel available from https://www.kernel.org/, which at the time of writing was 5.4.50. When you come to do this for yourself, you should check to see if there is a later version of the 5.4 kernel and use that instead since it will have fixes for bugs found after 5.4.50 was released.

Important note

If there is a later long-term release, you may want to consider using that one, but be aware that there may have been changes that mean that the following sequence of commands does not work exactly as given.

To fetch and extract a release tarball of the 5.4.50 Linux kernel, use the following:

$ wget https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/linux-5...