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 (16 chapters)
15
Index

Identifying the sources of non-determinism

Fundamentally, real-time programming is about making sure that the threads controlling the output in real-time are scheduled when needed and so can complete the job before the deadline. Anything that prevents this is a problem. Here are some problem areas:

  • Scheduling: Real-time threads must be scheduled before others so they must have a real-time policy, SCHED_FIFO, or SCHED_RR. Additionally they should have priorities assigned in descending order starting with the one with the shortest deadline, according to the theory of Rate Monotonic Analysis that I described in Chapter 10, Learning About Processes and Threads.
  • Scheduling latency: The kernel must be able to reschedule as soon as an event such as an interrupt or timer occurs, and not be subject to unbounded delays. Reducing scheduling latency is a key topic later on in this chapter.
  • Priority inversion: This is a consequence of priority-based scheduling, which leads to unbounded delays when a high...