Building Embedded Linux Systems: Concepts, Techniques, Tricks, and Traps

There's a great deal of excitement surrounding the use of Linux in embedded systems -- for everything from cell phones to car ABS systems and water-filtration plants -- but not a lot of practical information. Building Embedded Linux Systems offers an in-depth, hard-core guide to putting together embedded systems based on Linux.

Updated for the latest version of the Linux kernel, this new edition gives you the basics of building embedded Linux systems, along with the configuration, setup, and use of more than 40 different open source and free software packages in common use. The book also looks at the strengths and weaknesses of using Linux in an embedded system, plus a discussion of licensing issues, and an introduction to real-time, with a discussion of real-time options for Linux.

This indispensable book features arcane and previously undocumented procedures for:

• Building your own GNU development toolchain
• Using an efficient embedded development framework
• Selecting, configuring, building, and installing a target-specific kernel
• Creating a complete target root filesystem
• Setting up, manipulating, and using solid-state storage devices
• Installing and configuring a bootloader for the target
• Cross-compiling a slew of utilities and packages
• Debugging your embedded system using a plethora of tools and techniques
• Using the uClibc, BusyBox, U-Boot, OpenSSH, thttpd, tftp, strace, and gdb packages

By presenting how to build the operating system components from pristine sources and how to find more documentation or help, Building Embedded Linux Systems greatly simplifies the task of keeping complete control over your embedded operating system.

Karim Yaghmour is the founder and president of Opersys, a company providing expertise and courses on the use of open source and free software in embedded systems, and Kryptiva, a a provider of email security services. Being himself an active member of the open source and free software community, Karim has firmly established Opersys's services around the core values of knowledge sharing and technical quality promoted by this community. As part of his community involvement, Karim is the maintainer of the Linux Trace Toolkit and the author of a series of white-papers that led to the implementation of the Adeos nanokernel, which allows multiple operating systems to exist side-by-side.

Karim's quest for understanding how things work started at a very young age when he took it upon himself to break open all the radios and cassette players he could lay his hands on in order to "fix" them. Very early, he developed a keen interest in operating system internals and embedded systems. He now holds a B.Eng. and an M.A.Sc. from the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal. While everyone was hacking away at Linux, Karim even took a detour to write his own distributed micro-kernel in order to get to the bottom of operating system design and implementation. When not working on software, Karim indulges in his passion for history, philosophy, sociology, and humanities in general. He's especially addicted to essays and novels by Umberto Eco and Gerald Messadie.

Jonathan Masters works on the Linux kernel for Red Hat.

Gilad Ben-Yossef is the cofounder and CTO of Codefidence TD. and has been assisting OEMs make use of free and open source software in commercial products and services since 1998. He is also cofounder of Hamakor, an NPO devoted to the promotion of FOSS in Israel, and a founding organizer of "August Penguin," an Israeli community FOSS conference.

Gilad is a member of the Israeli chapter of Mensa, the Israeli Information Technology Association and the Israeli chapter of the Internet Society. He holds a B.A. in Computer Science from Tel-Aviv Jaffa Academic College.

When not trying to make FOSS software do something the authors never intended, Gilad likes to SCUBA dive, read science fiction and spend time with his wife Limor and his and two adorable girls, Almog and Yael.

Philippe Gerum is the founder and maintainer of the Adeos and Xenomai projects.