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January 16, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

BoFs: Developer Tools and Methods: Tips & Tricks – ELCE 2012

Tim Bird, senior staff software engineer at Sony Network Entertainment, hosts a BoF session about tools & methods for embedded Linux developers at ELCE 2012. Abstract: In this Birds-of-a-Feather-session, Tim will share some of his favorite tips for developing embedded Linux software. This will include tips for using ‘git’, how he does multi-platform development, and tips for other tools that other developers might find useful. Prior to the event, Tim will do a survey and solicit ideas from other developers as well. Please come to this BoF prepared to share your own productivity tips for embedded Linux development. Tim talks is divided into the following key points: Git tips – How to finds info about commits (git log, git show), use aliases (e.g. for colored output), find a commit that caused problem (git bisect), and more Patch management – quilt patch managing tool, diffinfo, and splitpatch (to break patches apart) […]

January 16, 2013January 16, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Upgrading Embedded Linux Without Bricking – ELCE 2012

Arnout Vandecappelle, senior embedded software architect at Essensium/Mind, talks about ways to greatly decrease the risk of bricking your board/device during upgrade thanks to gubies scripts and tools at the Embedded Linux Conference in Barcelona, Spain, on November 6, 2012. Abtract: Embedded systems are often modified remotely, e.g. to upgrade the firmware or change the configuration. This may however break the system and render it inaccessible, which is a major problem if the device is hard to reach physically. Unfortunately, no catch-all failsafe solution exists to make sure that the device stays accessible remotely even if a modification goes wrong. Instead, the possible failures have to be anticipated and covered. This talk discusses some of the frequently occurring failures, how they can be detected and handled. These include power failure, kernel crashes, network failure and data corruption. We include examples of concrete use cases. Finally, there is room for discussion about […]

January 16, 2013January 16, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

The End of Embedded Linux (As We Know It) – ELCE 2012

Chris Simmonds, freelance consultant and trainer (2net ltd), discusses the future of embedded Linux now that storage and processing power are no longer an major issue, and try to find the best Linux platform for embedded systems at ELCE 2012. Abstract: Embedded Linux is at a cross roads where the combination of Moore’s law making devices more powerful and the mass production of consumer devices, especially mobile, making them cheaper means that the old ways no longer work. Only a few years ago we though in mega: MHz, MBytes, MBits/s. Now we have to think in giga. The days of the single core CPU are almost over, as are the days of the QVGA display. All this means that there is a need to re-think how embedded devices are programmed. Two obvious roads lie ahead: Android and Ubuntu (or other desktop operating system of your choice). This talk considers the […]

January 16, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Board Bringup: You, Me, and I2C – ELCE 2012

David Anders, embedded systems developer at Texas Instruments, explains how to work with I2C in Linux based embedded systems at ELCE 2012. Abstract: Board bring up is one of the most under documented aspects of embedded development. I2C is such a powerful, low-cost, and ubiquitous method of communication, that a basic understanding of it’s usage is essential to the embedded linux developer to quickly bring up and debug embedded designs. This presentation will look at the various software and hardware aspects of working with I2C using simple case studies highlighting the implementation of an EEPROM and a GPIO Expander. Most embedded Linux developers at some point in their career will be handed a piece of hardware that is untested. This presentation intends to provide some information about core tools and methods for bring up of I2C interfaces and assorted I2C based peripheral devices. David Anders has previously presented at Embedded […]

January 16, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Supporting 200 Different Expansions Boards: The Broken Promise of Device Tree – ELCE 2012

Koen Kooi, software engineering manager at Circuitco Electronics and lead developer of the Angstrom distribution, explains that device tree does help with the ARM Linux kernel, but brings all the complexity to the bootloader(s), taking the variety of Beaglebone capes as example, at the Embedded Linux Conference in Barcelona, Spain, on November 6, 2012. Abstract: Devicetree is marketed as the one ring to rule them all when it comes to non-discoverable hardware for Linux on ARM. The problem with devicetree is that the complexity gets removed from the kernel and put into the bootloader. Koen first gives an overview of device tree, and provides an example (am33xx.dtsi) to show device tree data structure. Then time for some Beaglebone and capes promotion overview, before moving to the core of the problem: Pinctrl Resource tracking EVM/bone split uboot/uimage/dtb lockstep pdata only Keycodes and other non-hardware bits You can also download the presentation […]

January 16, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Your New ARM SoC Linux Support Check-List – ELCE 2012

Thomas Petazzoni, embedded Linux engineer and trainer at Free Electrons, describes the steps he followed to add a new Marvell SoC to the mainline kernel at ELCE 2012. Abstract: Since Linus Torvalds raised warnings about the state of the ARM architecture support in the Linux kernel, a huge amount of effort and reorganization has happened in the way Linux supports ARM SoCs. From the addition of the device tree to the pinctrl subsystem, from the new clock framework to the new rules in code organization and design, the changes have been significant over the last one and half year in the Arm Linux kernel world. Based on the speaker’s experience on getting the support for the new Marvell Armada 370 and Armada XP SoC support in the mainline Linux kernel, we will give an overview of those changes and summarize the new rules for ARM Linux support. We aim at […]

January 15, 2013January 15, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Porting Android 4.0 to a Custom Industrial Board Based on TI OMAP 3 – ELCE 2012

Matthias Brugger, embedded engineer at ISEE, describes the steps the company had to follow (referred to as a “war story”) to port Android 4.0 to a custom industrial board at ELCE 2012, Barcelona, on November 5, 2012. Abstract: This talk will explain the lessons learned by giving a step-by-step introduction of porting Android to a custom board which was designed for an industrial environment. This includes an introduction to the Android build environment, first board bring-up and peripheral integration. The talk will cover bootloader integration, power management. It will focus on the peculiarities configuring Ethernet and Wi-Fi in Android. Also button and display integration, as well as integration of third-party accelerator support will be explained. Android devices are getting popular not only in the mobile market but although in the industrial environment. Porting Android to a custom board can be challenging, especially as little information about Android internals are available. […]

January 15, 2013January 15, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

USB Debugging and Profiling Techniques – ELCE 2012

Kishon Vijay Abraham and Basak Partha, respectively software design engineer and tech lead at Texas Instruments, provide an overview of techniques that can be used to debug Linux USB drivers on the host PC or/and the device itself. Abstract: The widespread integration of USB into embedded applications presents many developers with the challenge of debugging problems, that are difficult to detect and isolate when a USB device misbehaves. This paper discusses about the various USB debugging techniques which includes debugging at the host PC, at the device and in the cable and discuss when each of the above techniques will be handy. This paper will also discuss about the various facilities provided within Linux kernel to aid in USB debugging e.g sysfs, trace points etc. and the various user space tools available to help USB debugging e.g USBMON. This paper also discusses about the profiling techniques at various levels in […]