Chap.

Embedded Linux Concept

 Outline
2.1 Linux Overview
Unix/LinuxHistory
Linux Concept
Linux Command
2.2 Embedded Linux Overview
ARM Linux
uClinux
Embedded Linux Concept

2
 Unix/Linux History
1985: The GNU manifesto is published in the March
1985 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal.

1989: SCO ships SCO UNIX System V/386, the first

volume commercial product licensed by AT&T to
use the UNIX System trademark

1991 : Linus Torvalds develops Linux as an open source

Unix clone

1994 : Linux 1.0 is released.

1995: SCO acquires UNIX Systems source technology business from

Novell Corporation (which had acquired it from AT&T's UNIX
System Laboratories). SCO also acquires UnixWare 2
operating system from Novell
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 Unix/Linux History
1996: Real-time Linux designated the RTLinux project
released in 1996 by Michael Barabanov under Victor
Yodaiken's supervision

1997: Caldera ships OpenLinux Standard 1.1 May 5, 1997,

the second offering in Caldera's OpenLinux product line

2003: Linux Kernel Archive http://www.kernel.org/.

The current full-featured version is 2.6 (released
December 2003) and development continues

2005: The latest stable version of the Linux kernel

is 2.6.12.4 (released 2005-08)

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 Outline
2.1 Linux Overview
Unix/LinuxHistory
Linux Concept
Linux Command
2.2 Embedded Linux Overview
ARM Linux
uClinux
Embedded Linux Concept

5
 Linux Architecture
Linux Kernel
Provide basic OS mechanisms, file
systems, device drivers...etc. System System User
Libraries Services Utilities Applications
C libraries, run-time libraries...etc.
Shell GUI
Shell (Command line interface)
(Bash, Csh) (Gnome, KDE)
A user program that provides an
environment for user interaction. Libraries (glibc)
GUI
Graphic User Interface Linux Kernel
System Services
Disk manager, Web server...etc.
System Utilities & User Applications Hardware (PC)
vim, ftp, ifconfig, firefox...etc.

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 Important Concept of Linux
You can simply regard a complete Linux
system as two major parts:
Kernel
Root Filesystem
A roughly boot sequence of Linux:
Now we can see the directory
Boot structure and files in hard disk
code
Kernel
Initiate Mount Mounted as root (/) Execute
hardware Root FS /sbin/init

Initiate Kernel
functions
Root Filesystem Execute
(Stored in hard disk) /sbin/login

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Linux Root File System

Ref. [1]
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 Typical Directories
/ : Root of the tree.
bin, sbin, usr/bin: software for the shell and most
common Linux commands.
dev: device files, Linux regards devices as files, for
example: HD0 /dev/hd0, printer1 /dev/lpt1.
home: contains individual user home directory
(/export/home on sun computers).
tmp: holds temporary files.
var: contains files that vary in size. (Mail directories,
printer spool files,logs, etc.)
etc: administrative files such as lists of user names and
passwords.
usr: contains application programs

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 The Linux Kernel
Task management
System calls
Memory management
Scheduler
IPC
File system
Device driver
Network stack
SMP support

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 Linux Kernel architecture
Architecture of a generic Linux system

Ref. [3]
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 Outline
2.1 Linux Overview
Unix/LinuxHistory
Linux Concept
Linux Command
2.2 Embedded Linux Overview
ARM Linux
uClinux
Embedded Linux Concept

12
 Linux command - Basics
man command: display online help , type q is exit
ls : display Information about files and directories
-l display detail information
-a display information for every file including hidden file in a
directory
cd : move to directory
cd ~ : move to home directory
cd .. : move one directory up
cd dirname : change to directory dirname
cp : copy file (cp from-filename to-filename)
rm : delete file (rm filename )
mv : move file (mv filename ./directory)
mkdir : create new directories
rmdir : delete empty directories

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 Linux command - Basics
df : reports the amount of free disk space on any currently mounted
filesystem
ln : creates a symbolic link to a files (ln -s originalfile linkfile)
more : display file contents in full screen and page by page
(more filename)
shutdown : shutdown the system
-h halt the system when the shutdown is complete
-r reboot the system when the shutdown is complete
halt : shutdown the system now
reboot : restart computer
pwd : report current directory
who : show who is logged on
passwd : change password
login, logout : log in or log out system
startx : start X window

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Linux command - File Management
chown : change the permissions user and group of file or directory (chown
user:group file or directory)
chmod : change the permissions user and group of file or directory [ex]
chmod ug+rx dirname, chmod 755 dirname
mount : attach the device to the filesystem
[ex] mkdir /c (first make directory)
mount /dev/hdc /c
umount : detach the device from the filesystem
[ex] umount /c
uname : display system information <ex> uname -a
mkbootdisk : [ex] mkbootdisk --device /dev/fd0 2.4.20-8
build floppy boot disk ,kernel Ver. 2.4.20-8
cat : concatenates files [ex] cat a.txt >> b.txt
fdisk : partition tool
mke2fs : format tool [ex] mke2fs /dev/fd0

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 Linux command - Network
ping : send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets to network hosts
[ex] ping 140.118.123.173
telnet : connects the local host with a remote host
[ex] telnet 140.118.123.173
ifconfig : configure a network interface
[ex] ifconfig eth0 140.118.123.173
netstat : display network state
route : show/manipulate the IP routing table
ftp : file transfer tool [ex] ftp 140.118.123.173
bin : switch to binary transfer mode
ascii : switch to ascii transfer mode
get filename : download file
put filename : upload file
bye : quit ftp
ls : list file and directory
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Linux command - Compress & Decompress

For file
compress :
bzip2 : [ex] bzip2 filename form filename.bz2
zip : [ex] zip filename1 filename form filename1.zip
gzip : [ex] gzip filename form filename.gz
decompress :
bzip2 : [ex] bzip2 -d filename.bz2
unzip : [ex] unzip filename1.zip
gzip : [ex] gzip -d filename.gz

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 Linux command - Compress & Decompress

For directory
tar : The GNU version of the tar archiving utility
-z: gzip/ ungzip type
-c: create a new archive
-x: extract files from archive
-v: verbosely list files processed
-f: use archive file or device F (default "-", meaning stdin/stdout)
compress : [ex] tar -zcvf directory.tar.gz directory
use gzip to compress directory and generate
directory.tar.gz.
decompress : [ex] tar -zxvf directory.tar.gz
use gzip to decompress and extract directory.tar.gz.

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 Linux command - Search
find : find [pathnames] [conditions]
An extremely useful command for finding particular
groups of files.

grep : grep [options] pattern [files]

Search one or more files for lines that match a regular
expression pattern.

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 Linux command - Process
ps : ps [options]
-a : list all processes on a terminal
-u : display processes for the specified users
-x : display processes without an associated terminal

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 Linux command - Process
Kill : kill [options] [PIDs]
Send a signal to terminate one or more processes.

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 Outline
2.1 Linux Overview
Unix/LinuxHistory
Linux Concept
Linux Command
2.2 Embedded Linux Overview
ARM Linux
uClinux
Embedded Linux Concept

22
 ARM Linux
ARM Linux [7] is a port of the successful Linux
Kernel to ARM processor based machines.

ARM Linux is under almost constant

development by various people and
organizations around the world.

It reserves mostly generic Linux Kernel

features, such as multi-tasking, memory
management, and so on.

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 ARM Linux
Important features for developers:
Multi-tasking
Support fork() system call

Memory Management Unit (MMU)

Support virtual memory
Support brk() system call

Executable File Format

Support standard ELF executable file format

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 Outline
2.1 Linux overview
Unix/LinuxHistory
Linux Concept
Linux Command
2.2 Embedded Linux Overview
ARM Linux
uClinux
Embedded Linux Concept

25
 uClinux
The name uClinux [2] comes from Micro()-
Controller Linux.

The original uClinux was a derivative of

Linux 2.0 kernel intended for micro-
controllers without MMUs.

uClinux first ported to the Motorola

MC68328: DragonBall Integrated
Microprocessor.

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 uClinux
Important features for developers:
Multi-tasking
fork() system call is not implemented
vfork() is used instead of fork()

No Memory Management Unit

Does not have autogrow stack and no brk()
Need to use mmap() to allocate memory
Need to set stack size of a program at compile time
No memory protection
Any program can crash another program or the kernel
Executable File Format
Only support FLAT executable file format

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 Outline
2.1 Linux overview
Unix/LinuxHistory
Linux Concept
Linux Command
2.2 Embedded Linux Overview
ARM Linux
uClinux
Embedded Linux Concept

28
 Embedded Linux Architecture
Basically, the embedded Linux architecture is the same
as the generic Linux architecture.

The software such as glibc, bash, Gnome and KDE ...

etc, are too large to be used in embedded system.

The common substitution for software in embedded

system is listed below:
Glibc uClibc
Bash busybox, Sash
Gnome, KDE Microwindow, Qt Embedded, MiniGUI
Login Tinylogin
Standalone Utilities busybox
NOTE: Busybox is a program that integrates a lot of frequently used utilities into it.

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 Embedded Linux Build Procedure
Make a Kernel image for your board
The make procedure of distribution of embedded Linux that you
are using is different from the others but they are similar.
The common make procedure of Linux Kernel:
make xconfig (or menuconfig)
Configure your Kernel
make dep (not necessary in 2.6 Kernel)
Check dependency
make
Compile your Kernel and produce the Kernel image
Build a Root Filesystem
You can build it manually or automatically build via some tools or
scripts.
Put all files you want in the Root Filesystem image.
Commonly used file systems: ext2 and romfs.
Copy Kernel and Root FS to Flash memory
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 Reference
[1] linux
[2] http://www.uclinux.org
[3] http://www.xml.com/ldd/chapter/book/
bookindexpdf.html
[4] http://linux.about.com
[5] http://linux.vbird.org/
[6] http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~reid/csc209/02f/
[7] http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/

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 Exercise

1. What kinds of operating systems are popular in

embedded systems?
2. What are the advantages of choosing Linux as
an embedded operating system?
3. Why uClinux has low memory flexibility?
4. What are the differences between ARM Linux
and uClinux?

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