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

Barebox


I will complete this chapter with a look at another bootloader that has the same roots as U-Boot but takes a new approach to bootloaders. It is derived from U-Boot and was actually called U-Boot v2 in the early days. The Barebox developers aimed to combine the best parts of U-Boot and Linux, including a POSIX-like API and mountable filesystems.

The Barebox project website is www.barebox.org and the developer mailing list is .

Getting Barebox

To get Barebox, clone the git repository and check out the version you want to use:

$ git clone git://git.pengutronix.de/git/barebox.git
$ cd barebox
$ git checkout v2014.12.0

The layout of the code is similar to U-Boot:

  • arch: Contains code specific to each supported architecture, which includes all the major embedded architectures. SoC support is in arch/[architecture]/mach-[SoC]. Support for individual boards is in arch/[architecture]/boards.

  • common: Contains core functions, including the shell.

  • commands: Contains...