Book Image

Mastering Embedded Linux Programming - Second Edition

By : Chris Simmonds
Book Image

Mastering Embedded Linux Programming - Second Edition

By: Chris Simmonds

Overview of this book

Embedded Linux runs many of the devices we use every day, from smart TVs to WiFi routers, test equipment to industrial controllers - all of them have Linux at their heart. Linux is a core technology in the implementation of the inter-connected world of the Internet of Things. The comprehensive guide shows you the technologies and techniques required to build Linux into embedded systems. You will begin by learning about the fundamental elements that underpin all embedded Linux projects: the toolchain, the bootloader, the kernel, and the root filesystem. You’ll see how to create each of these elements from scratch, and how to automate the process using Buildroot and the Yocto Project. Moving on, you’ll find out how to implement an effective storage strategy for flash memory chips, and how to install updates to the device remotely once it is deployed. You’ll also get to know the key aspects of writing code for embedded Linux, such as how to access hardware from applications, the implications of writing multi-threaded code, and techniques to manage memory in an efficient way. The final chapters show you how to debug your code, both in applications and in the Linux kernel, and how to profile the system so that you can look out for performance bottlenecks. By the end of the book, you will have a complete overview of the steps required to create a successful embedded Linux system.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)

Debugging forks and threads

What happens when the program you are debugging forks? Does the debug session follow the parent process or the child? This behavior is controlled by follow-fork-mode, which may be parent or child, with parent being the default. Unfortunately, current versions of gdbserver do not support this option, so it only works for native debugging. If you really need to debug the child process while using gdbserver, a workaround is to modify the code so that the child loops on a variable immediately after the fork, giving you the opportunity to attach a new gdbserver session to it and then to set the variable so that it drops out of the loop.

When a thread in a multi-threaded process hits a breakpoint, the default behavior is for all threads to halt. In most cases, this is the best thing to do as it allows you to look at static variables without them being changed...