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Mastering Embedded Linux Programming

Mastering Embedded Linux Programming

By : Frank Vasquez, Chris Simmonds
4.6 (24)
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Mastering Embedded Linux Programming

Mastering Embedded Linux Programming

4.6 (24)
By: Frank Vasquez, Chris Simmonds

Overview of this book

If you’re looking for a book that will demystify embedded Linux, then you’ve come to the right place. Mastering Embedded Linux Programming is a fully comprehensive guide that can serve both as means to learn new things or as a handy reference. The first few chapters of this book will break down the fundamental elements that underpin all embedded Linux projects: the toolchain, the bootloader, the kernel, and the root filesystem. After that, you will learn how to create each of these elements from scratch and automate the process using Buildroot and the Yocto Project. As you progress, the book will show you how to implement an effective storage strategy for flash memory chips and install updates to a device remotely once it’s deployed. You’ll also learn about the key aspects of writing code for embedded Linux, such as how to access hardware from apps, the implications of writing multi-threaded code, and techniques to manage memory in an efficient way. The final chapters demonstrate how to debug your code, whether it resides in apps or in the Linux kernel itself. You’ll also cover the different tracers and profilers that are available for Linux so that you can quickly pinpoint any performance bottlenecks in your system. By the end of this Linux book, you’ll be able to create efficient and secure embedded devices using Linux.
Table of Contents (27 chapters)
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1
Section 1: Elements of Embedded Linux
10
Section 2: System Architecture and Design Decisions
18
Section 3: Writing Embedded Applications
22
Section 4: Debugging and Optimizing Performance

Discovering the hardware configuration

The dummy driver demonstrates the structure of a device driver, but it lacks interaction with real hardware since it only manipulates memory structures. Device drivers are usually written to interact with hardware. Part of that is being able to discover the hardware in the first place, bearing in mind that it may be at different addresses in different configurations.

In some cases, the hardware provides the information itself. Devices on a discoverable bus such as PCI or USB have a query mode, which returns resource requirements and a unique identifier. The kernel matches the identifier and possibly other characteristics with the device drivers and marries them up.

However, most of the hardware blocks on an embedded board do not have such identifiers. You have to provide the information yourself in the form of a device tree or as C structures known as platform data.

In the standard driver model for Linux, device drivers register themselves...

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