Linux, the free, Open Source operating system, is rapidly emerging as the leading platform for embedded devices using high-performance, 32-bit processors. And as the cost of computing continues to plummet, these processors are showing up just about everywhere. The ARM architecture, featuring a relatively high performance-to-power ratio, has become popular in a wide range of consumer and industrial electronic products including cell phones, set-top boxes and robots to name just a few.

This 3-day seminar focuses on how Linux has been adapted for use in embedded environments, with specific emphasis on the ARM architecture. Through extensive hands-on lab work, you learn how to install a cross-development environment, build a compact version of Linux for an embedded device, install the build on the target system, and test its operation. You’ll create and test programs that exercise I/O as well as networking applications and also explore real-time extensions.

Participants will have available for use during the class an ARM-based target single-board computer (SBC) kit. This is the same SBC supplied with the Embedded Linux Learning Kit and is offered at a substantial discount to class participants.

Instructor:

Doug Abbott, MSEE UC Berkeley, is the founder and principal of Intellimetrix. With over 25 years of experience in the computer industry, Doug has dealt with various aspects of hardware and software design related to real-time data acquisition and instrumentation for scientific, industrial and consumer applications.

Prior to founding Intellimetrix, Doug’s experience included managing software engineering for DSP Technology, Inc., a leading supplier of high-speed instrumentation for automotive testing.

Doug is also a popular instructor and seminar leader, who teaches classes on embedded Linux and real-time programming. This course can be customized and made available for on-site presentation.

Course Outline:

Introduction

What is Open Source and why do you care?

Linux features and characteristics

• Protected memory
• Processes
  • Foreground vs. background
• Users and Groups
• Root user
• Graphical desktop environment—KDE

Filesystems

• Root filesystem
• Privileges
• Links
• “Mounting” filesystems
• Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS)
  • Special places

Development Environment

• Install software
• Configure the host
• Configure the target
  • Flash filesystems
• Network Filesystem (NFS)
• Our first program

Eclipse

• Creating and building C projects
• Debugging with Eclipse

Embedded Application Programming

Accessing hardware from User Space

• Data acquisition example

A simple simulation environment

• Thermostat example

Multi-processing vs. multi-threading—Pthreads

• Threads
• Mutexes
• Adding settable parameters to thermostat

Network programming

• Sockets
• Client/server paradigm
• Networked thermostat
• Multiple monitor threads
• Embedded web server

Configuring and building the kernel

• Booting via TFTP
• Root filesystem over NFS

Busybox

Bootloader

Linux and Real-time

Why isn’t Linux real-time?

• How bad is it?

Possible solutions

• Pre-emption improvement
• Interrupt abstraction

Introducing RTLinux

Kernel modules

Inter-task communication

• FIFOs
• Shared memory

RTLinux in Kernel Space