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

Product typeBook
Published inMay 2021
PublisherPackt
ISBN-139781789530384
Edition3rd Edition
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Authors (2):
Frank Vasquez
Frank Vasquez
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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
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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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The software used in this book is entirely open source. In almost all cases, I have used the latest stable versions available at the time of writing. While I have tried to describe the main features in a manner that is not version-specific, it is inevitable that some of the examples will need adaptation to work with later software.

* See the Compatible Linux Distribution section of the Yocto Project Quick Build guide at https://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/current/brief-yoctoprojectqs/brief-yoctoprojectqs.html for more details.

Embedded development involves two systems: the host, which is used for developing the programs, and the target, which runs them. For the host system, I have used Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, but most Linux distributions will work with just a little modification. You may decide to run Linux as a guest in a virtual machine, but you should be aware that some tasks, such as building a distribution using the Yocto Project, are quite demanding and are better run on a native installation of Linux.

I chose three exemplar targets: the QEMU emulator, the BeagleBone Black, and the Raspberry Pi 4. Using QEMU means that you can try out most of the examples without having to invest in any additional hardware. On the other hand, some things work better if you do have real hardware, for which, I have chosen the BeagleBone Black because it is not expensive, it is widely available, and it has very good community support. The Raspberry Pi 4 was added in the third edition for its built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Of course, you are not limited to just these three targets. The idea behind the book is to provide you with general solutions to problems so that you can apply them to a wide range of target boards.

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Mastering Embedded Linux Programming - Third Edition
Published in: May 2021Publisher: PacktISBN-13: 9781789530384

Authors (2)

author image
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

author image
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