You're reading from Mastering Embedded Linux Programming - Third Edition

Product typeBook

Published inMay 2021

PublisherPackt

ISBN-139781789530384

Edition3rd Edition

Concepts

Embedded Systems

Authors (2):

Frank Vasquez

Chris Simmonds

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Introducing toolchains

A toolchain is a set of tools that compiles source code into executables that can run on your target device and includes a compiler, a linker, and runtime libraries. Initially, you need one to build the other three elements of an embedded Linux system: the bootloader, the kernel, and the root filesystem. It has to be able to compile code written in assembly, C, and C++ since these are the languages used in the base open source packages.

Usually, toolchains for Linux are based on components from the GNU project
(http://www.gnu.org), and that is still true in the majority of cases at the time of writing. However, over the past few years, the Clang compiler and the associated Low Level Virtual Machine (LLVM) project (http://llvm.org) have progressed to the point that it is now a viable alternative to a GNU toolchain. One major distinction between LLVM and GNU-based toolchains is the licensing; LLVM has a BSD license while GNU has the GPL.

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Mastering Embedded Linux Programming - Third Edition

Published in: May 2021Publisher: PacktISBN-13: 9781789530384

Authors (2)

Frank Vasquez

Frank Vasquez is an independent software consultant specializing in consumer electronics. He has over a decade of experience designing and building embedded Linux systems. During that time, he has shipped numerous devices including a rackmount DSP audio server, a diver-held sonar camcorder, and a consumer IoT hotspot. Before his career as an embedded Linux engineer, Frank was a database kernel developer at IBM where he worked on DB2. He lives in Silicon Valley.
Read more about Frank Vasquez

Chris Simmonds

Chris Simmonds is a software consultant and trainer living in southern England. He has almost two decades of experience in designing and building open-source embedded systems. He is the founder and chief consultant at 2net Ltd, which provides professional training and mentoring services in embedded Linux, Linux device drivers, and Android platform development. He has trained engineers at many of the biggest companies in the embedded world, including ARM, Qualcomm, Intel, Ericsson, and General Dynamics. He is a frequent presenter at open source and embedded conferences, including the Embedded Linux Conference and Embedded World.
Read more about Chris Simmonds

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