GnuGroup India

Course Goal

Intended Students

This course is intended for programmers who have working knowledge of programming in C. Understanding of compiling and linking a C program.

Course Purpose
It's  primer for those interested in making their career in embedded systems based on linux.
The course has been designed around the reference “Embedded Linux primer-A practical real world approach”.

Practicals:Using BeagleBoardxM

Fee: Rs 12500/-

1) Introduction to the GNU/Linux Operating Systems
1.1 Why Linux?
1.2 Embedded Linux Today
1.3 Open Source and the GPL
1.3.1 Free Versus Freedom
1.4 Standards and Relevant Bodies
1.4.1 Linux Standard Base
1.4.2 Linux Foundation
1.4.3 Carrier-Grade Linux
1.4.4 Mobile Linux Initiative: Moblin
1.4.5 Service Availability Forum

2) The Big Picture
2.1 Embedded or Not?
2.1.1 BIOS Versus Bootloader

2.2 Anatomy of an Embedded System
2.2.1 Typical Embedded Linux Setup
2.2.2 Starting the Target Board
2.2.3 Booting the Kernel
2.2.4 Kernel Initialization: Overview
2.2.5 First User Space Process: init

2.3 Storage Considerations
2.3.1 Flash Memory
2.3.2 NAND Flash
2.3.3 Flash Usage
2.3.4 Flash File Systems
2.3.5 Memory Space
2.3.6 Execution Contexts
2.3.7 Process Virtual Memory
2.3.8 Cross-Development Environment

2.4 Embedded Linux Distributions
2.4.1 Commercial Linux Distributions
2.4.2 Do-It-Yourself Linux Distributions

3) Processor Basics
3.1 Stand-Alone Processors
3.1.1 IBM 970FX
3.1.2 Intel Pentium M
3.1.3 Intel Atom tm
3.1.4 Freescale MPC7448
3.1.5 Companion Chipsets

3.2 Integrated Processors: Systems on Chip
3.2.1 Power Architecture
3.2.2 Freescale Power Architecture
3.2.3 Freescale PowerQUICC I
3.2.4 Freescale PowerQUICC II
3.2.5 PowerQUICC II Pro
3.2.6 Freescale PowerQUICC III
3.2.7 Freescale QorIQTM
3.2.8 AMCC Power Architecture
3.2.9 MIPS
3.2.10 Broadcom MIPS
3.2.11 Other MIPS
3.2.12 ARM
3.2.13 TI ARM
3.2.14 Freescale ARM
3.2.15 Other ARM Processors

3.3 Other Architectures

3.4 Hardware Platforms
3.4.1 CompactPCI
3.4.2 ATCA

4) The Linux Kernel: A Different Perspective

4.1 Background
4.1.1 Kernel Versions
4.1.2 Kernel Source Repositories
4.1.3 Using git to Download a Kernel

4.2 Linux Kernel Construction
4.2.1 Top-Level Source Directory
4.2.2 Compiling the Kernel
4.2.3 The Kernel Proper: vmlinux
4.2.4 Kernel Image Components
4.2.5 Subdirectory Layout

4.3 Kernel Build System
4.3.1 The Dot-Config
4.3.2 Configuration Editor(s)
4.3.3 Makefile Targets

4.4 Kernel Configuration
4.4.1 Custom Configuration Options
4.4.2 Kernel Makefiles

4.5 Kernel Documentation
4.6 Obtaining a Custom Linux Kernel
4.6.1 What Else Do I Need?

5) Kernel Initialization

5.1 Composite Kernel Image: Piggy and Friends
5.1.1 The Image Object
5.1.2 Architecture Objects
5.1.3 Bootstrap Loader
5.1.4 Boot Messages

5.2 Initialization Flow of Control
5.2.1 Kernel Entry Point: head.o
5.2.2 Kernel Startup: main.c
5.2.3 Architecture Setup

5.3 Kernel Command-Line Processing
5.3.1 The __setup Macro

5.4 Subsystem Initialization
5.4.1 The *__initcall Macros

5.5 The init Thread
5.5.1 Initialization Via initcalls
5.5.2 initcall_debug
5.5.3 Final Boot Steps

6) User Space Initialization

6.1 Root File System
6.1.1 FHS: File System Hierarchy Standard
6.1.2 File System Layout
6.1.3 Minimal File System
6.1.4 The Embedded Root FS Challenge
6.1.5 Trial-and-Error Method
6.1.6 Automated File System Build Tools

6.2 Kernel’s Last Boot Steps
6.2.1 First User Space Program
6.2.2 Resolving Dependencies
6.2.3 Customized Initial Process

6.3 The init Process
6.3.1 inittab
6.3.2 Sample Web Server Startup Script

6.4 Initial RAM Disk
6.4.1 Booting with initrd
6.4.2 Bootloader Support for initrd
6.4.3 initrd Magic: linuxrc
6.4.4 The initrd Plumbing
6.4.5 Building an initrd Image

6.5 Using initramfs
6.5.1 Customizing initramfs

6.6 Shutdown

7) Bootloaders

7.1 Role of a Bootloader
7.2 Bootloader Challenges
7.2.1 DRAM Controller
7.2.2 Flash Versus RAM
7.2.3 Image Complexity
7.2.4 Execution Context

7.3 A Universal Bootloader: Das U-Boot
7.3.1 Obtaining U-Boot
7.3.2 Configuring U-Boot
7.3.3 U-Boot Monitor Commands
7.3.4 Network Operations
7.3.5 Storage Subsystems
7.3.6 Booting from Disk

7.4 Porting U-Boot
7.4.1 EP405 U-Boot Port
7.4.2 U-Boot Makefile Configuration Target
7.4.3 EP405 First Build
7.4.4 EP405 Processor Initialization
7.4.5 Board-Specific Initialization
7.4.6 Porting Summary
7.4.7 U-Boot Image Format

7.5 Device Tree Blob (Flat Device Tree)
7.5.1 Device Tree Source
7.5.2 Device Tree Compiler
7.5.3 Alternative Kernel Images Using DTB

7.6 Other Bootloaders
7.6.1 Lilo
7.6.2 GRUB
7.6.3 Still More Bootloaders

8) Device Driver Basics
8.1 Device Driver Concepts
8.1.1 Loadable Modules
8.1.2 Device Driver Architecture
8.1.3 Minimal Device Driver Example
8.1.4 Module Build Infrastructure
8.1.5 Installing a Device Driver
8.1.7 Module Parameters

8.2 Module Utilities
8.2.1 insmod
8.2.2 lsmod
8.2.3 modprobe
8.2.4 depmod
8.2.5 rmmod
8.2.6 modinfo

8.3 Driver Methods
8.3.1 Driver File System Operations
8.3.2 Allocation of Device Numbers
8.3.3 Device Nodes and mknod

8.4 Bringing It All Together

8.5 Building Out-of-Tree Drivers
8.6 Device Drivers and the GPL

9) File Systems
9.1 Linux File System Concepts
9.1.1 Partitions
9.2 ext2
9.2.1 Mounting a File System
9.2.2 Checking File System Integrity
9.3 ext3
9.4 ext4
9.5 ReiserFS
9.6 JFFS2
9.6.1 Building a JFFS2 Image
9.7 cramfs
9.8 Network File System
9.8.1 Root File System on NFS

9.9 Pseudo File Systems
9.9.1 /proc File System
9.9.2 sysfs

9.10 Other File Systems
9.11 Building a Simple File System

10) MTD Subsystem

10.1MTD Overview
10.1.1 Enabling MTD Services
10.1.2 MTD Basics
10.1.3 Configuring MTD on Your Target

10.2 MTD Partitions
10.2.1 Redboot Partition Table Partitioning
10.2.2 Kernel Command-Line Partitioning
10.2.3 Mapping Driver
10.2.4 Flash Chip Drivers
10.2.5 Board-Specific Initialization

10.3 MTD Utilities
10.3.1 JFFS2 Root File System

10.4 UBI File System
10.4.1 Configuring for UBIFS
10.4.2 Building a UBIFS Image
10.4.3 Using UBIFS as the Root File System

11) Busy Box
11.1 Introduction to Busy Box
11.1.1 BusyBox Is Easy

11.2 BusyBox Configuration
11.2.1 Cross-Compiling BusyBox

11.3 BusyBox Operation
11.3.1 BusyBox init
11.3.2 Sample rcS Initialization Script
11.3.3 BusyBox Target Installation
11.3.4 BusyBox Applets

12) Embedded Development Environment

12.1 Cross- Development Environment
12.1.1“Hello World” Embedded

12.2 Host System Requirements
12.2.1 Hardware Debug Probe

12.3 Hosting Target Boards

12.3.1 TFTP Server
12.3.2 BOOTP/DHCP Server
12.3.3 NFS Server
12.3.4 Target NFS Root Mount
12.3.5 U-Boot NFS Root Mount Example

13) Development Tools

13.1 GNU Debugger (GDB)
13.1.1 Debugging a Core Dump
13.1.2 Invoking GDB
13.1.3 Debug Session in GDB

13.2 Data Display Debugger

13.3 cbrowser/cscope
13.4 Tracing and Profiling Tools
13.4.1 strace
13.4.2 strace Variations
13.4.3 ltrace
13.4.4 ps
13.4.5 top
13.4.6 mtrace
13.4.7 dmalloc
13.4.8 Kernel Oops

13.5 Binary Utilities
13.5.1 readelf
13.5.2 Examining Debug Information Using readelf
13.5.3 objdump
13.5.4 objcopy

13.6 Miscellaneous Binary Utilities
13.6.1 strip
13.6.2 addr2line
13.6.3 strings
13.6.4 ldd
13.6.5 nm
13.6.6 prelink

14) Kernel Debugging Techniques

14.1 Challenges to Kernel Debugging

14.2 Using KGDB for Kernel Debugging
14.2.1 KGDB Kernel Configuration
14.2.2 Target Boot with KGDB Support
14.2.3 Useful Kernel Breakpoints
14.2.4 Sharing a Console Serial Port with KGDB
14.2.5 Debugging Very Early Kernel Code
14.2.6 KGDB Support in the Mainline Kernel

14.3 Kernel Debugging Techniques
14.3.1 gdb Remote Serial Protocol
14.3.2 Debugging Optimized Kernel Code
14.3.3 GDB User-Defined Commands
14.3.4 Useful Kernel GDB Macros
14.3.5 Debugging Loadable Modules
14.3.6 printk Debugging
14.3.7 Magic SysReq Key

14.4 Hardware-Assisted Debugging
14.4.1 Programming Flash Using a JTAG Probe
14.4.2 Debugging with a JTAG Probe

14.5 When It Doesn’t Boot
14.5.1 Early Serial Debug Output
14.5.2 Dumping the printk Log Buffer
14.5.3 KGDB on Panic

15) Debugging Embedded Linux Applications
15.1 Target Debugging
15.2 Remote (Cross) Debugging
15.2.1 gdbserver

15.3 Debugging with Shared Libraries
15.3.1 Shared Library Events in GDB

15.4 Debugging Multiple Tasks
15.4.1 Debugging Multiple Processes
15.4.2 Debugging Multithreaded Applications
15.4.3 Debugging Bootloader/Flash Code

15.5 Additional Remote Debug Options
15.5.1 Debugging Using a Serial Port
15.5.2 Attaching to a Running Process

16) Open Source Build Systems
16.1 Why Use a Build System?
16.2 Scratchbox
16.2.1 Installing Scratchbox
16.2.2 Creating a Cross-Compilation Target

16.3 Buildroot
16.3.1 Buildroot Installation
16.3.2 Buildroot Configuration
16.3.3 Buildroot Build

16.4 OpenEmbedded
16.4.1 OpenEmbedded Composition
16.4.2 BitBake Metadata
16.4.3 Recipe Basics
16.4.4 Metadata Tasks
16.4.5 Metadata Classes
16.4.6 Configuring OpenEmbedded
16.4.7 Building Images

17) Linux and Real Time

17.1 What Is Real Time?
17.1.1 Soft Real Time
17.1.2 Hard Real Time
17.1.3 Linux Scheduling
17.1.4 Latency

17.2 Kernel Preemption
17.2.1 Impediments to Preemption
17.2.2 Preemption Models
17.2.3 SMP Kernel
17.2.4 Sources of Preemption Latency

17.3 Real-Time Kernel Patch
17.3.1 Real-Time Features
17.3.2 O(1) Scheduler
17.3.3 Creating a Real-Time Process

17.4 Real-Time Kernel Performance Analysis
17.4.1 Using Ftrace for Tracing
17.4.2 Preemption Off Latency Measurement
17.4.3 Wakeup Latency Measurement
17.4.4 Interrupt Off Timing
17.4.5 Soft Lockup Detection

18) Universal Serial Bus

18.1 USB Overview
18.1.1 USB Physical Topology
18.1.2 USB Logical Topology
18.1.3 USB Revisions
18.1.4 USB Connectors
18.1.5 USB Cable Assemblies
18.1.6 USB Modes

18.2 Configuring USB
18.2.1 USB Initialization

18.3 sysfs and USB Device Naming

18.4 Useful USB Tools
18.4.1 USB File System
18.4.2 Using usbview
18.4.3 USB Utils (lsusb)

18.5  Common USB Subsystems
18.5.1 USB Mass Storage Class
18.5.2 USB HID Class
18.5.3 USB CDC Class Drivers
18.5.4 USB Network Support

18.6 USB Debug
18.6.1 usbmon
18.6.2 Useful USB Miscellanea

19) udev
19.1 What Is udev?
19.2 Device Discovery
19.3 Default udev Behavior
19.4 Understanding udev Rules
19.4.1 Modalias
19.4.2 Typical udev Rules Configuration
19.4.3 Initial System Setup for udev
19.5 Loading Platform Device Drivers
19.6 Customizing udev Behavior
19.6.1 udev Customization Example: USB Automounting

19.7 Persistent Device Naming
19.7.1 udev Helper Utilities

19.8 Using udev with busybox
19.8.1 busybox mdev
19.8.2 Configuring mdev

Project – Assignment.