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

Transfering the root filesystem to the target


Having created a skeleton root filesystem in your staging directory, the next task is to transfer it to the target. In the sections that follow, I will describe three possibilities:

  • ramdisk: a filesystem image that is loaded into RAM by the bootloader. Ramdisks are easy to create and have no dependencies on mass storage drivers. They can be used in fall-back maintenance mode when the main root filesystem needs updating. They can even be used as the main root filesystem in small embedded devices and, of course, as the early user space in mainstream Linux distributions. A compressed ramdisk uses the minimum amount of storage but still consumes RAM. The contents are volatile so you need another storage type to store permanent data such as configuration parameters.

  • disk image: a copy of the root filesystem formatted and ready to be loaded onto a mass storage device on the target. For example, it could be an image in ext4 format ready to be copied onto...