Book Image

Mastering Embedded Linux Programming

By : Chris Simmonds
Book Image

Mastering Embedded Linux Programming

By: Chris Simmonds

Overview of this book

Mastering Embedded Linux Programming takes you through the product cycle and gives you an in-depth description of the components and options that are available at each stage. You will begin by learning about toolchains, bootloaders, the Linux kernel, and how to configure a root filesystem to create a basic working device. You will then learn how to use the two most commonly used build systems, Buildroot and Yocto, to speed up and simplify the development process. Building on this solid base, the next section considers how to make best use of raw NAND/NOR flash memory and managed flash eMMC chips, including mechanisms for increasing the lifetime of the devices and to perform reliable in-field updates. Next, you need to consider what techniques are best suited to writing applications for your device. We will then see how functions are split between processes and the usage of POSIX threads, which have a big impact on the responsiveness and performance of the final device The closing sections look at the techniques available to developers for profiling and tracing applications and kernel code using perf and ftrace.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Mastering Embedded Linux Programming
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

GDB user interfaces


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

I have only mentioned those which have features that are useful in embedded development.

Terminal user interface

Terminal user interface (TUI), is an optional part of the standard GDB package. The main feature is a code window which 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 and doesn't need any extra set-up and, since it is in text mode, it is possible to use over an ssh terminal session when running gdb natively on a target. Most cross toolchains configure GDB with TUI. Simply add -tui to the command line and you will see the following:

Data display debugger

Data display debugger (DDD), is a simple standalone...