Course Objectives

To provide an understanding of the essentials of embedded GNU/Linux, how the bits and pieces fit together. What components are needed to build an embedded GNU/Linux system, where to get them from and how to configure/build/install them? Where to get help from? What about those software licenses? Hands-on exercises provide you with the necessary practical experience to go ahead and develop your own embedded GNU/Linux systems after completing this training successfully.

Description

This five day training class uses hands-on exercises combined with instruction to illustrate the concepts of embedded GNU/Linux. It is designed to bring you quickly up to speed. The philosophy, concepts and commands necessary to make effective use of GNU/Linux are described through a combination of theory and on-the-job training. Don’t reinvent the wheel, but learn from an experienced trainer and take home a working knowledge of GNU/Linux and the ability to use it effectively in your own embedded development project.

Prerequisites

• Basic familiarity with using a GNU/Linux system (e.g. Ubuntu) as an end user in user space 
• Basic familiarity with a command line shell 
• Basic knowledge of user space/application development with GNU/Linux 
• Basic knowledge concerning embedded processors and development boards 
• Basic C programming knowledge 
• …and/or nor fear to learn the above… 

Who should attend?

Managers, project managers, software-, hardware-, development-, systems engineers, testers, administrators, technicians and other parties interested in the technology, who want to understand as quickly as possible how Embedded GNU/Linux works. You must use GNU/Linux or you have to luxury to decide whether it makes sense to use it or not. Maybe you already tried to use Embedded GNU/Linux, but are not quite sure that you did everything the right way. You currently use a different operating system and wand to figure out whether GNU/Linux might better and/or cheaper.

Delivery Options

All the training material is English, but the presentation of it can be in English or in German, as you wish, worldwide.

• on-site - instructor driven*) 
• on-line - instructor driven**) 
• on-site/on-line combination - instructor driven*)**) 

During the training we’ll provide laptops*), boards*)**), workbooks (in English)*)**), remote access to servers and boards**), screen-sharing**), audio-bridge**).

Check out our training delivery options to see how we can present/customise our material to your specific needs. Feel free to contact us for further inquiries.

COURSE OUTLINE

Introduction

• History of Unix/Linux
• Free Software
• Unix Philosophy

HOST PLAYGROUND

•  Play with GNU/Linux
  • architecture
  • shell
  • permissions
  • FHS (file hierarchy standard)
  • hard/soft links
  • real/effective uid/gid
  • scheduler
  • process/task/thread
  • IPC simple/advanced
    • pipes
    • signals
    • message queues
    • semaphores
    • shared memory
    • sockets
    • select/poll
  • IPC techniques to avoid
• Host Linux setup
  • Yocto/ELDK (cross/target tools, libraries, packages)
  • Terminal Emulation
  • Servers (DHCP, tftp, NFS)

TARGET PLAYGROUND

• files needed to run something on board
  • JTAG/BDI config
  • u-boot (checkout, config, build)
  • kernel (checkout, config, build)
  • rootfs
  • flat device tree
• build/execute what's applicable from above on the target board
• various rootfs 
  • CRAMFS
  • ramdisk
  • MTD
  • JFFS2
  • roEXT2
  • ubi
• build/execute what's applicable from above on the target board
• comparison of root file systems
• debugging
  • simple tools
  • local/remote
  • user/kernel
  • gdb
  • gdbserver
  • JTAG/BDI (optional)
• profiling
  • gprof
  • gcov
  • oprofile

REAL-TIME

• prerequisites
  • interrupts
  • reentrant code
• real-time Linux
  • explicit/implicit preemption points
  • real-time preemption patch
  • fully preemptive kernel
  • hard real-time extensions
• Adeos/Xenomai
  
  • adeos patch
  • xenomai
  • patch/config/build kernel
  • run it on board

SW RELEASE

• administration
• development
• how to reproduce a SW release?

MISC

• getopt
• endianess
• cheat-sheets

Inquiry

All fields with an asterisk (*) are required.

Course Objectives

The aim of this crash course is to provide a basic overview of embedded GNU/Linux. What are the components needed to build an embedded GNU/Linux system where to get them from and how to configure/build/install them? Where to get help from? What about licenses? Hands-on exercises provide you with the necessary practical experience to go ahead and configure/build an embedded GNU/Linux system with mainline components.

Description

This 3-day training class uses hands-on exercises combined with instruction to illustrate some basic concepts of Embedded GNU/Linux. Hands on sessions are performed with Yocto, on a Beagle-Bone Black Rev.C. The whole workshop is designed to bring you quickly up to speed. The concepts and commands necessary to make effective use of Embedded GNU/Linux are described through a combination of theory and on-the-job training. Don’t reinvent the wheel, but learn from an experienced trainer and take home a working knowledge of Embedded GNU/Linux and the ability to use it effectively in your own embedded development project.

Prerequisites

• Basic knowledge of how to use Linux (Ubuntu)
• Familiarity with embedded C concepts and programming
• Ability to develop software using C syntax
• Basic knowledge of embedded processor development boards
• ... or no fear to learn the aboveand programming

Who should attend?

Project managers, software, hardware, development and systems engineers, technicians and those interested in technology who want to try to understand as quickly as possible how Embedded GNU/Linux works. You have to use GNU/Linux, or have the luxury to decide whether it makes sense to use it or not. You may already use Embedded GNU/Linux, but you are not quite sure if you do everything right. You currently use another operating system and want to find out whether Linux would maybe be more cost effective. . . .

Course Outline

Introduction

• What is GNU/Linux?
• Licensing
• Standards
• Working with free software
• Spelunking
• The Unix Philosophy
• What is an embedded system?
• What is a real-time operating system

Embedded Specifics

• What’s an Embedded System?
• Embedded vs. Desktop Linux
• Portability
• Build for your Target
• Toolchains
• C-libraries

Eval board

• What is the Beagle?
• Booting
• Booting the Beagle
• Partition/Format SD card
• Populate partitions with given boot-loader, kernel, rootfs
• Configure serial console
• Board booting Linux 

Stuff needed

• Install toolchain
• U-boot
  • What is U-boot?
  • What does it do?
  • Fancy Stuff
  • Get/configure/build install
• Flat device tree
  • What is a flat device tree?
• Linux kernel
  • What is uImage?
  • Get/configure/build install
  • Kernel modules
• Rootfs
  • Use rootfs from Yocto

Customizations

• Add network support to board
  • U-boot scripting
  • Network support in U-boot
  • Custom kernel with network support
• Rootfs from nfs
  • Nfs server setup/configuration
• Init
  • Sys-V
  • Upstart
  • Initng
  • Systemd
• Bootgraph
• Bootchart

Kernel Modules

• Hello Kernel, module-init-tools, Kconfig, Kbuild
• out of tree, in tree

Device Drivers

• Device Nodes
• Registration, Initialization, Open, Release,...
• Miscellaneous Character Drivers

Debugging/Profiling/Tracing

• What is a bug?
• What is debugging?
• Simple debugging tools
  • lsof, ltrace, strace, proc, top, netstat, syslog
• Advanced debugging tools
  • What’s a debugger?
  • gdb
    • target gdb
    • gdbserver
    • kgdb/kdb + agent-proxy
    • JTAG
• What is profiling?
• What is tracing?
• Profiling tools
  • time, gprof, gcov, oprofile
• Tracing tools
  • ftrace, kernelshark, LTTng
• Misc. tools
  • top, latencytop, powertop, powerdebug, crash, systemtap

Inquiry

All fields with an asterisk (*) are required.

Description

This 5-day training class uses hands-on exercises combined with instruction to illustrate the concepts of GNU/Linux kernel internals and device driver development. It is desinged to bring you quickly up to speed. We describe processes, concepts and commands necessary to write GNU/Linux device drivers through a combination of theory and on-the-job training. Don’t reinvent the wheel, but learn from an experienced trainer and take home a working knowledge and the ability to use it effectively in your own embedded development project.

Prerequisites

• Basic familiarity with using a GNU/Linux system as an end user
• Basic familiarity with a command line shell
• Basic knowledge of user space / application development
• Intermediate C programming knowledge
• Should have attended Embedded GNU/Linux Systems Architecture before (strongly recommended!) and/or have a good understanding of the topics outlined there

Who should attend?

People with interest in or tasked with the development or evaluation of developing GNU/Linux device drivers like software engineers, field engineers, (project) managers, hardware engineers.

Course Outline

Introduction

• quick history of GNU/Linux
• licensing
• kernel versioning
• release cycle
• kernel trees
• mainline
• kernel vs. user space
• mechanism vs. policy
• kernel driver alternatives
• RTOS vs. Linux

Memory Management

• Virtual memory vs. physical memory
• memory allocation in kernel
• pages
• zones
• API
• slab

Kernel Patch

• life cycle
• git
• kernel source
• create patch
• check patch
• fix patch
• ship patch
• audited code

Kernel Modules

• get kernel sources
• configure/build/install
• device drivers (statically linked, loaded at runtime)
• init/exit
• licensing
• EXPORT SYMBOL GPL
• out of tree makefile
• module-init-tools
• module in kernel tree
• Kconfig
• parameter passing
• sparse

Char Drivers

• architecture
• user/kernel interface
• I/O subsystem
• VFS
• sysfs (devices, bus, drivers, classes),
• kobject/ktype/kset
• linux kernel driver model
• device files
• char driver
  • initialization
  • registration
  • open, release
  • cdev, cdev add, cdev del,...
  • major/minor numbers
  • udev, udevmonitor, udevadm

Advanced Charachter Driver Operations

• ioctl
• unlocked ioctl
• compat ioctl
• user space API
• kernel space API
• process lifecycle
• sleeping/blocking
• sleeping/waking up
• wait queue
• thundering herd
• poll/select

Kernel Debugging

• bug
• debugging
• debugging the kernel
  • binary search with git
  • debug support from kernel
  • printk syslogd, klogd, loglevels, rate limit, debug levels, debug selective subsystems
  • debugging by querying debugfs
  • oops debugging, asserting oops
  • Magic SysRq Key
  • kgdb/kdb
  • JTAG

Tracing

• gcov
• lcov
• oprofile
• ftrace
  • nop tracer
  • function tracer
  • sched switch tracer
  • function graph tracer
  • dynamic tracer
• trace-cmd/kernelshark
• perf
• LTTng

Interrupts

• interrupts vs. polling
• interrupt
• program sections
• reentrancy
• events
• interrupt handler
• shared interrupt handler
• interrupt flow
• interrupt control

Deferring Work

• top/bottom halves
• softirqs
• tasklets
• work queues
• threaded interrrupts

Concurrency

• critical region/section
• atomic
• race condition
• synchronization
• locking
• locking solutions
• deadlock
• contention
• what to lock?
• what can be used?
  
  • atomic operations
  • spin locks
  • reader-writer spin locks
  • semaphore
  • binary semaphore
  • mutex
  • reader-writer semaphore
  • completion variables
  • sequential locks
  • disable preemption
  • orderig and barriers

Time

• HZ
• Jiffies
• big/small delays
• kernel timers

Hardware I/O

• I/O Ports
• I/O Memory
• How to deal with side effects accessing registers?

User-Kernel Communication

• put(get)_user()
• copy to(from)_user()
• Kernel I/O
• memory mapping
• procfs
• sysfs
• debugfs
• relayfs
• netlink
• ioctl

Portability

• word size
• opaque types
• signed/unsigned char
• data alignment
• integral promotion
• code reuse
• endianess
• system tick
• page size
• instruction ordering
• SMP/preemption/high memory

Inquiry

All fields with an asterisk (*) are required.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

To provide a practical knowledge and understanding of real-time kernel usage. What are the advantages? What are the trade-offs? Learn from an experienced trainer and take home a working knowledge of FreeRTOS and the ability to use it efectively in your own embedded development project.

Description

This 3-day training class uses hands-on exercises combined with instruction to illustrate the concepts of a real-time kernel. Examples using FreeRTOS form a series of practical coding exercises designed to bring you quickly up to speed. The concepts and commands necessary to make effective use of FreeRTOS are described through a combination of theory and ‘hands-on’ training. Learn from an experienced trainer and take home a working knowledge of FreeRTOS and the ability to use it effectively in your own embedded development project.

Prerequisites

• Familiarity with embedded C concepts and programming
• Ability to develop software using C syntax
• Ability to use basic embedded compiler and debug tools
• Basic knowledge of embedded processor development boards

Who should attend?

People with interest in or tasked with development of a resource constrained real-time system. For example - software engineers, field engineers, (project) managers.

Course Outline

• Introduction

  • FreeRTOS overview, market position, the "free" in FreeRTOS, understanding the FreeRTOS license, software architecture, features.
  • LPCXpresso IDE download and installation, importing an example workspace.

• Task Management

  • Tasks - Creation, states, priorities, the idle task, deletion.
  • Scheduling - Determinism, multitasking, endless loop, cyclic executives, issues with interrupts, non-preemptive, prioritized preemptive, rate monotonic, deadline, cooperative, hybrid.

• Queue Management

  • Creation, sending, receiving

• Interrupt Management

  • Deferred interrupt processing, interrupt handlers, interrupt safe functions, task with interrupt synchronization, efficient queue usage even from within an interrupt, interrupt nesting.

• Resource Management

  • Mutual exclusion, critical sections, suspending/locking the scheduler, mutexes, priority inversion, priority inheritance, deadlock, gatekeeper tasks.

• Memory Management

  • Resource constrained memory allocation schemes, determining the amount of free memory remaining.

• Trouble Shooting

  • avoiding bugs and how to find those you did not avoid

• FreeRTOS-MPU

  • User vs. privileged mode, access permissions, defining MPU regions, linker configuration, practical usage tips.

• The FreeRTOS Download

  • Files and directories, demo apps, data types and coding style.

A customized version of this training like FreeRTOS on LPCXPresso 1769 is offered by FreeRTOS.

Inquiry

All fields with an asterisk (*) are required.