Customer Reviews

Linux for Embedded and Real-Time Applications (Embedded Technology)

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I bought this book hoping for an in depth look at using Linux for real-time. The table of contents would lead you to believe that this is the case.

Instead I found that it covered this topic only at a very high level. It might be good for an introduction to this topic, but there is very little depth here. For example, the chapter on Linux and Real-time is only 5 pages long! While the description of configuring BlueCat Linux (seems pretty off-topic to me) is 14 pages.

Unless you're a newbie to this topic, don't bother.

This book is VERY light on content (it's a pretty small book, 193 pages for the primary material). If you just look at the table of contents, you can get more depth in a couple hours of googling.

It just isn't a very useful book. It has nothing to offer a programmer with any level of experience with Linux or embedded systems, and it doesn't really educate the guy who's new to those subjects. It's more like a collection of superficial magazine articles.

The amount of real-time covered is really minimal. It touches on defining real-time computing, then has a (short and fairly useless) chapter on RTAI that doesn't do anything.

Go with Yaghmour's "Building Embedded Linux Systems", it's a MUCH better book, and is probably cheaper.

This book is easy to read, and a good place to *START* for Embedded Linux. The organization of the chapters probably makes more sense once you're done reading it. It contains an excellent introduction to RTOS, multi-tasking, and relevant Linux programming concepts. The book is not intended as a complete guide to Embedded Linux or Real-Time issues, but rather helps the reader get started with an example using inexpensive hardware to drive a real embedded application. Important Embedded Linux concepts are covered including (remote) debugging, kernel modules, device drivers, and the available extensions to Linux for enabling an embedded and soft/firm real-time environment. Linux is not ready for hard real-time applications, but it's on the radar (which is why WindRiver is starting to support Linux based tools). I think this is a good first book for Embedded Linux in order to avoid getting lost in the wealth of other information available. I think I would like to see more/some real-world architectural based examples added to the book/CD. The book is not filled with useless pages of source code listings. If this book were to try and cover all real-time and Embedded Linux concepts and issues, it would be 1000 pages! A good book to start with!