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Mastering Embedded Linux Development

Mastering Embedded Linux Development

By : Frank Vasquez, Mr. Chris Simmonds
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Mastering Embedded Linux Development

Mastering Embedded Linux Development

By: Frank Vasquez, Mr. Chris Simmonds

Overview of this book

Mastering Embedded Linux Development' is designed to be both a learning resource and a reference for your embedded Linux projects. The book starts by breaking down the fundamental elements that underpin all embedded Linux projects: the toolchain, the bootloader, the kernel, and the root filesystem. First, you will download and install a pre-built toolchain. After that, you will cross-compile each of the remaining three elements from scratch and learn to automate the process using Buildroot and the Yocto Project. The book progresses with coverage of over-the-air software updates and rapid prototyping with add-on boards. Two new chapters tackle modern development practices including Python packaging and deploying containerized applications. These are followed by a chapter on writing multithreaded code and another on techniques to manage memory in an efficient way. The final chapters demonstrate how to debug your code, whether it resides in user space or in the Linux kernel itself. In addition to GDB, the book also covers 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 book, you will be able to create efficient and secure embedded devices with Linux that will delight your users.
Table of Contents (28 chapters)
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1
Part 1: Elements of Embedded Linux
7
Part 2: Building Embedded Linux Images
11
Part 3: System Architecture and Design Decisions
18
Part 4: Developing Applications
23
Part 5: Debugging and Optimizing Performance

After the kernel has booted

In Chapter 4, we saw how the kernel bootstrap code looks for a root filesystem, either initramfs or a filesystem specified by root= on the kernel command line. The kernel bootstrap code then executes a program, which, by default, is /init for initramfs and /sbin/init for a regular filesystem. The init program has root privilege, and since it is the first process to run, it has a process ID (PID) of 1. If, for some reason, init cannot be started, the kernel will panic and the system will fail to boot.

The init program is the ancestor of all other processes, as shown here by the pstree command running on a simple embedded Linux system:

# pstree -gn
init(1)-+-syslogd(63)
        |-klogd(66)
        |-dropbear(99)
        `-sh(100)---pstree(109)

The job of the init program is to take control of the boot process in user space and set it running. It may be as simple as a shell command running a shell script—there is an example of this at the...

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