I come from a windows background and i am proficient with the .net platform. For work, i need to bring up a custom embedded system platform. We have bought the pandaboard ES as the test platform. The application is to stream images over the wifi. If you think about it, we are building something similar to a netgear router - the only difference being when you log into the device it serves images.
Because my background is in windows i am not quite sure how to start off with embedded linux development. in reading through various sites i have come to the conclusion that going to linux as development host is the best option.
Can some one point to me in the right direction regarding the set up. I have a windows machine that will be used for development purposes. I can either do a virtual box or setup a partition for linux. But the finer details are what throwing me off..what i need to know is
1) once i install linux what other software do I need - Code blocks,
2) what about toolchain
3) How to debug - through serial port ?
4) Is there a way to send the image built directly to the CF card?
Thanks
i suggest you to install linux on your desktop or laptop, perhaps
In a virtual machine.
Then, learn to compile on the command line (the order of program arguments to gcc is important).
Start an editor like emacs. Take half an hour to follow its tutorial.
Edit the helloworld.c file.
Compile it with
gcc -Wall -g helloworld.c -o hello
Improve it till no warnings are given.
Use
./hello
To run it.
Learn to use make with your own Makefile.
Use a version control system like git.
Learn to use cross compilation tools.
addenda
See also my answer here and also this answer.
Cross-building is not very different from native Linux building, except for the names of the cross-compilation tools.
But my feeling is that installing Linux and learning to develop Linux applications on Linux will teach you a lot of skills necessary for cross-development targeted for embedded Linux systems. So read material about Advanved Linux Programming and Advanced Unix Programming.
Remote debugging thru the serial port should be possible.
Related
Hi i have an application written in GTK and i would like to make it into an bootable ISO file.
I have tried many options but have failed and being sent in many directions using cmake and make by following several tutorials which did not work.
Does anybody know how to create an bootable ISO file for / from an GTK based application on linux / ubuntu?
I am currently using ubuntu to develop the bootloading application yet i would prefer the GTK application to startup when the computer starts up, and have no operating system running if possible?
GTK requires an operating system kernel (a Linux kernel...) to be running, and some display server, e.g. Xorg.
So you need to actually make your custom Linux distribution.
I would prefer the GTK application to startup when the computer starts up, and have no operating system running
This is not possible
But you could study the source code of source based Linux distributions like Gentoo and work for several months to make your own Linux distribution.
You probably would need help and address many issues you did not even thought of (e.g. AZERTY keyboard layout, computers with only USB disks, laptops with only Wifi network connections, etc...)
Notice that Debian & Ubuntu can be configured to boot some (open source) GTK based installation procedure. I guess you could study in details their implementation (since it is open source)
It's not possible to boot a GTK application without operating system, as Basile Starynkevitch said.
However, you can use Linux to display only your GTK distribution, without any additional programs and I think it can be done easier, than Starynkevitch's method.
You can try to use the tool Systemback or similar to create a bootable live Linux distribution. Systemback is not maintained anymore but there is a github fork made by BluewhaleRobot that appears to be more up-to-date.
You can install a light Linux distribution, for example Xubuntu, and remove all unnecessary packages and programs. You can set the wallpaper, remove or leave the taskbar/menu start etc. Then, install your GTK application, add it to autorun and use Systemback's "Live system create" function.
The ISO image should be created and your program should be already installed in it with autorun.
It's not a perfect and stable solution, however, it seems to be the easiest way to achieve what you want.
I want to build a minimum Linux for embedded devices that comes with Firefox only.
Questions:
Is it ever possible to add X11 components to runlevel3 and
upgrade it to runlevel5?
Is it possible to setup a Linux in runlevel3 with minimum display support so that I be able to run
Firefox? (Not interested in text based browsers)
I gave it a go but I got lots of dependency errors trying to install X11-common with apt-get in runlevel3.
Linux From Scratch is a step-by-step instruction book for anyone who wants to gain a good understanding of how to build own custom Linux distro.
There is a dedicated topic about X Window System Environment
This includes the base LFS project and a bunch of extensions derived from it. For embedded systems Cross Linux From Scratch is of particular interest.
Another option - in case you want to do it faster but losing deep understanding - is using some Embedded Linux distro builder like Buildroot
I am developing a program similar to xbmc but only for movies. I was wondering if there is any very simple operating system that will basically just boot and run the program I am developing? Similar to what openelec does for XBMC. I can run it on windows but I want to be able to put it on a machine like raspberry pi without having to have a whole windows or linux OS.
I hope that makes sense.
Take a look at the rather slim linux distributions specialized in embedded systems, like firewalling distros and so on.
Then, if it is a graphical application you have to make sure you boot into runlevel 5 (graphics) and configure your application as login shell for the default user.
You might also be interested in two services the openSUSE project offers: the Open Build Service (OBS) and SUSE Studio:
OBS allows you to automatically get packages of your application built and packaged, ready for use in a number of wide spread distributions.
Studio allows you to go a step further and create a custom distribution for your own purpose: you can call it 'your' operating system, completely preconfigured for your purpose, with all requried software and your own application installed. You just have to download a CD image afterwards!
I have to check installation steps of my application on different production machines. I want to check how can I install my application on HP UX. I have only linux/windows machines but dont have real physical HP unix machine. Is there any way i can check installation steps of HP unix. I am thinking of any virtual environment or any flavour that run on linux or windows which gives accessiblity and functionality of HP unix.
I am looking something to cross check platfrom installation steps.
The short answer is no. HP-UX is as different from Linux as Linux is from Windows (almost). There would be many differences in libraries, patches, installed utilities, build tools, etc.
A few examples:
HP-UX does not come pre-installed with the bash shell
HP-UX uses a proprietary software packager and installer called swinstall (analogous to RPM but completely different)
Partition layout is different
Many common utilities behave differently. "echo" is one of many examples. This will affect things if your build process uses shell utilities
Even if you can test the install, don't you need to test the product's operation on HP-UX?
Not saying it's impossible. If your application uses basic, nonspecific utilities for install, it might work. There is no way to know without a running installation. Unfortunately you need Itanium hardware and the O/S.
My recommendation would be to get your application working on Solaris and any other Unixes first. The more platforms you test on, the more portable your code will become on all of them. Then, put out some feelers and find someone with a system you can borrow time on.
Worst case, find an Itanium server like an rx2620 on eBay, should not cost too much. Even better if the seller forgets to wipe the O/S :). You'll need a terminal and possibly null modem. 11.31 (11iv3) is the latest version of the O/S.
I will have (maybe) to work soon on ARM platform hosting a linux distribution (I don't know which distribution ..).
I know the project concerns video streaming, but I can't tell you more. Actually I only received the announe, and meet nobody yet.
I've never worked on such platform. So the idea for me is to test before the project starts.
What would you advise me to undestand how works such platform ? Internet links? Tutorials? Tools
Morevover, as I don't have any ARM processor at home (well only my iPhone ..) Which virtual machine would you advise me? (I clearly don't want to lose time installing and testing every one of them.)
I am aware of this page on wikipedia. Which one is the more appropriate running on a MacOS X 10.5/intel platform? Which linux distribution to install on the virtual machine?
I know the topic is quite wide, so any idea is welcomed! :-)
For a virtual machine that can emulate a ARM platform try QEMU. You can install a ARM-based Debian Linux distribution and tinker around with it. A google search on ARM, QEMU and Debian will get you started.
Also: Don't worry to much about the ARM CPU. You will use linux, so all the low-level stuff is already done for you. It's much more important to learn how the linux boot process works. How to install stuff ect. You will rarely (if ever) notice that you're running on a ARM device. The big difference to a PC running linux is, that the ARM will be a lot slower.
If you're looking for a real piece of hardware to play around with I suggest that you take a look at the beagleboard (www.beagleboard.org). It's cheap (around $150) and runs (among other things) various linux distributions.
With the beagleboard you'll get the whole linux cross compilation experience if you want (be warned: you'll pull your hair out).
I can't answer all of your questions, but there's a full port of Debian GNU/Linux on ARM. Works fabulously in my experience (I've tried it on a QNAP). Everything that's available in Debian works on QNAP now! So it's probably easiest to first try Debian tools and packages that come close to your project, and then continue from there.