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

Types of toolchain - native versus cross toolchain

For our purposes, there are two types of toolchain:

  • Native: This toolchain runs on the same type of system, sometimes the same actual system, as the programs it generates. This is the usual case for desktops and servers, and it is becoming popular on certain classes of embedded devices. The Raspberry Pi running Debian for ARM, for example, has self-hosted native compilers.
  • Cross: This toolchain runs on a different type of system than the target, allowing the development to be done on a fast desktop PC and then loaded onto the embedded target for testing.

Almost all embedded Linux development is done using a cross development toolchain, partly because most embedded devices are not well suited to program development since they lack computing power, memory, and storage, but also because it keeps the host and target environments separate. The latter point is especially important when the host and the target are using the same architecture, X86_64...