Posted by Cliff Brake on 2010-08-07 | 
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Recently, I’ve been evaluating Qt Creator for general C/C++ development. I’m currently involved in the development of a rather large C++ application that is approaching 200,000 lines of code and 1000 source modules. In the past, I’ve typically used Vim for editing, and Eclipse as a gdb front-end when needed. Qt Creator is a rather [...]
Posted by Cliff Brake on 2010-06-14 | Be the First to Comment
This article and screen-cast is a continuation of that last couple posts describing the BEC OE build template. The purpose again for a build system is to automate tedious manual tasks, and in doing so, we end up documenting how the build system works. Having a good build system is important during product development so [...]
Posted by Cliff Brake on 2010-06-08 | Be the First to Comment
In this article screencast, we’ll demonstrate how to create a custom Linux OS image using the OpenEmbedded build system. This demonstration builds on the earlier article about using the BEC OE build template. The OpenEmbedded build system is similar to Linux distributions in that you can select from a wide array of components to install. [...]
Posted by Cliff Brake on 2010-06-05 | 2 Comments to Read
Setting up an OpenEmbedded build is a fairly simple process if you carefully follow the instructions. There are also a number of scripts available that automate the setup such as the OpenEmbedded Tools for Eclipse, the Angstrom setup scripts, the KaeilOS Openembedded Manager, and I’m sure there are many more (feel free to add in [...]
Posted by Cliff Brake on 2010-06-02 | Be the First to Comment
As we evaluate various technologies that might be applicable in embedded systems, MeeGo is the subject of this article. MeeGo is a collaboration between Intel and Nokia, and is replacing the Moblin and Maemo efforts. For this review, MeeGo was installed to a USB flash disk and booted on a Asus EEPC. This was quite [...]
Posted by Cliff Brake on 2010-02-08 | 5 Comments to Read
Based on the interest and number of embedded modules currently available, it appears that the OMAP3 CPU from TI will be very popular in the general purpose embedded Linux market. One of the OMAP3 modules available is the Overo from Gumstix. As the company name suggests, this module looks about like a stick of gum, [...]
Posted by Cliff Brake on 2010-01-06 | 3 Comments to Read
As one of the things I do is evaluate new technologies for embedded systems, the Go language from Google is an interesting development. I have been looking for a better “system” language for some time. What I mean by a better system language is one that is nearly as efficient as C, does not require [...]
Posted by Cliff Brake on 2009-12-29 | Be the First to Comment
Ever since I have been sending out weekly change logs, I have been impressed by the consistent amount of development activity in the OpenEmbedded project. Every week there are consistently over a dozen developers making changes. Developers come and go, but the contribution level always seems healthy. While this amount of development leads to some [...]
Posted by Cliff Brake on 2009-12-07 | 3 Comments to Read
One of the most common power management modes for ARM processors is the suspend mode. In this mode, peripherals are shut down when possible, the SDRAM is put into self-refresh, and the CPU is placed in a low power mode. A useful bit of information is to know how soon the system can respond to [...]
Posted by Cliff Brake on 2009-12-01 | Read the First Comment
I just read an interesting interview with Greg Kroah Hartman. According to Greg, we add 11,000 lines, remove 5500 lines, and modify 2200 lines every single day. This rate of change is something that few organizations have the resources to match. It is interesting that Google chose to use the Linux kernel in the Android [...]
Posted by Cliff Brake on 2009-11-23 | 8 Comments to Read
This article provides an overview of the Linux kernel support for the suspend state in the TI OMAP3. Power management has always been one of the more difficult parts of a system to get right. The OMAP3 power management is quite extensive. There are many levels of very granular control over the entire system. Initially, [...]
Posted by Cliff Brake on 2009-11-19 | 3 Comments to Read
I just received an email notification from EMS (http://ems-wuensche.com/) that support for their CAN controllers is now in mainline Linux kernels. The EMS PCI products are supported in 2.6.31, and the CPC-USB product will be supported in 2.6.32. I’ve used various Linux CAN stacks in the past, but none were as well integrated as the [...]
Posted by Cliff Brake on 2009-11-05 | 2 Comments to Read
I do quite a few OpenEmbedded project builds during the course of a week. This process usually takes 3-5 minutes. That is just enough time to get distracted doing something else and forget about the build until an hour later when you realize — oops, I was supposed to send out a release email once [...]
Posted by Cliff Brake on 2009-10-13 | Read the First Comment
A common question is how do you do kernel development with OpenEmbedded? Typically, OpenEmbedded builds a kernel by checking the source out of a git repository, or by applying patch files to a released version of the kernel. See the many recipes for examples. This works very well for a Linux distribution build system, but [...]
Posted by Cliff Brake on 2009-09-08 | 6 Comments to Read
I recently wrote an article about best practices building Qt applications with OpenEmbedded, and it occured to me that I should write an equivalent article for Gtk+ applications. The same points apply — put your application source in a SCM system, and put the install logic in the application source (read the above article). The [...]