Embedded Linux pointers?

[Neil Cherry]

Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Jay Moore wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, 2005-12-15 at 20:02 -0500, Neil Cherry wrote:
>>> Rather than hijack the CF-based Router thread I thought I'd ask
>>> in a separate thread. Does anyone have a good howto, tutorial or
>>> book for understanding building an embedded Linux setup? I have
>>> several boards that I want to use but I always run into trouble
>>> with the initrd, or pivot root or something near in the process.
>>>
>>> Any pointers?
>> Well there's a book titled "Building Embedded Linux Systems" by
>> Karim Yaghmour. I'd almost recommend it as I think it does a
>> reasonably good job of covering things, but it falls short (IMHO) of
>> providing the "how- to" necessary to get a real system going. And
>> the author has apparently found other fish to fry, as there are no
>> errata nor updates to the book (last I checked anyway).

> you have to be more specific -- an embedded linux for what processor?

Many, different ones. Current interest is in the ARM family and
the x86 processors.

> as a start, crosstool to build your cross-compiler toolchain.  then,
> for general info, www.denx.de has lots of good information.

The cross tools haven't been a problem. There are many good
tutorials on how to build them. Where I get burnt is building
the files needed for booting from flash. I've gotten stuck
(crashed) in initrd because it couldn't find the correct file
system. Put the same build on a floppy and it would boot. I
always seem to get stuck there.

BTW, one of the boards is an in house design so there are
no mailing lists.

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