Reviews for Building Embedded Linux Systems

1. Excellent book that deserves better index, contents page and reference handling.

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, January 12th, 2010

   Good: breadth of coverage including udev, rootfs and library alternatives (to save memory etc.)
   
   Bad: index and contents pages make it difficult to use as quick reference (see below).
   
   Highly recommended along with Embedded Linux Primer. Both are probably essential reading for anyone starting in embedded Linux development. However, Embedded Linux Primer is a far more accessible quick reference because of its far superior contents pages. Breadth of coverage is exceptional despite only being about 420 pages. Practical approach with discussion of alternative choices i.e glibc versus specialist embedded alternatives, terminal emulator alternatives, etc.
   
   Well worth reading from cover to cover, but it needs a better a better index and contents section to serve as a reference afterwards. It probably covers most of the essential tools but its difficult to tell from the index, contents page or chapter introductions. Compare the inadequate contents pages of this book with the contents pages of the Embedded Linux Primer. With a quick glance at the contents page of Embedded Linux Primer I can see immediately what tools are available for various tasks and even on which page the tool is covered. As a result, the contents pages alone of Embedded Linux Primer are a useful reminder of what tools are available for various tasks. In contrast, despite a search of the contents pages, index and even chapter introductions of this book I cannot obtain the same information.
   
   mdev illustrates the index problem: mdev is discussed as an alternative to udev. Unfortunately you can only find it in the index if you know it is part of Busybox.
   
   In addition, references are poorly presented: references to other books are embedded in text so are difficult to find and do not specify the edition they reference. Some of the internal references appear to be applicable only for the first edition (not the second edition being reviewed): p.178 "..libc.so...as we said in Chapter 4, is a link script" seems to be correct for the first edition but not for the second.

2. A plug from PLUG for this book

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, May 12th, 2009

   At our LUG (PLUG.fi), we have a gadget club, where we play with devices. They're not all GNU/Linux based, but we do strive to move in that direction. Embedded systems are very cool! However, it's difficult to gather all the info on the device platform options and development tools. As I work with GNU/Linux daily, my personal choice is of course an embedded GNU/Linux system. As I am on the software side myself, I have to rely on PLUG members who are familiar with hardware. Not knowing personnally is still frustrating. That's where this book really hit the spot. After reading this book I have a much better understanding of everything I need to know in terms of the software, and what are my hardware component options.
   
   The first thing I checked out was the hardware section. I am happy to say, my confusion abated after reading the explanations on ARM, AVR32 etc. architectures. Having all the info on the various buses, storage options, CAN etc. in one place was a relief. Somehow seeing them all in one place makes understanding this whole topic a lot easier.
   
   The book is well written and an easy read. I found it very useful especially for someone who comes from the software side, but I would imagine a hardware person would equally well learn from the software related topics.
   
   I was very pleased to find information on the minimum requirements for running embedded linux. In other words, when I should skip using linux and use some other environment instead.
   
   I wasn't interested in real-time linux myself, but for those who are, there are three chapters covering that aspect of linux, including one on Xenomai.
   

3. Very usefull, but not definitive.

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, June 12th, 2008

   Although most embedded projects are based on fairly old versions of the kernel, there are still developments and applications that will eventually render this book outdated, hopefully these will be addressed in the new edition due this autumn.
   
   That said, this book can be thought of as a well researched digest of the hits that you would find on google. All facets of embedded system development are discussed, as are potential target platforms. The reader is even encouraged (and shown how!) to "home brew" and embedded system.
   
   This make book makes a good reference and "cook book" for different approaches, and will be a wonderful aid to anyone starting to develop embedded Linux systems.
   
   I feel that embedded engineers who are new to Linux will find more kernel-specific works to be a better starting point, but once they have that familiarity they will find this book to be invaluable.

4. quite useful

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, July 12th, 2004

   The book is interesting and fairly useful in that it confirms that what I have been doing to create cross compilers, embedded versions of Linux etc, is more or less correct. However, I was disappointed that quite a lot of the build procedures in the book simply don't work so I had to resort to hacking as normal!

5. Excellent embedded linux starting point

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2003

   The book is an excellent embedded GNU/Linux starting point: Karim drives you through almost all aspects of embedded Linux system configuration and installation giving a lot of 'pointers' to software and documentation, saving many hours of 'googling'. At the end of the book I found myself with a perfectly configured and specifically taylored GNU/Linux embedded system cross/development framework and a running target board.
   Congratulation Karim !