Category: Blog
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U-Boot: protect sensitive environment variables
This is a follow-up from our Accessing the U-Boot environment from a C program blog post. 🌳Need to protect the environment When you’re trying to harden an embedded Linux device to make it more resistant to attacks, one key part to secure is the bootloader, because that’s the part that boots the operating system. Even…
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Mainline Linux 7.0 running on Arduino Q
Here are steps to reproduce it by yourself, if you are the happy owner of this board, currently priced at 48 EUR on the Arduino shop for the 2 GB version. This is done without removing the original kernel. Your board will still boot such kernel by default. Setup and prerequisites To do this by…
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Accessing the U-Boot environment from a C program
Need to modify the U-Boot environment from Linux There are multiple reasons for wanting to modify U-Boot variables from Linux, one of them being to implement A/B update mechanisms. Typically, after you’ve flashed a device with a new version, you’ll set the upgrade_available U-Boot variable to 1, reboot, and let U-Boot try to boot the…
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Contributions to Linux 6.19
Root Commit’s contributions to Linux 6.19 Linux 6.19 is out with 7 contributions from Root Commit: These are mainly Device Tree contributions to support completely new boards in the Linux kernel, such as Asus Tinker Board 3S (arm64) or Orange Pi R2S (riscv), or to expand support for existing boards, here for Orange Pi 3B…
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Yocto Project Virtual Summit 2025: devtool hands-on class slides
Happy to share the slides from my Devtool hands-on class presentation at Yocto Project Virtual Summit 2025. Devtool is a very helpful tool for creating and maintaining recipes. I’m very happy I accepted to take over the traditional devtool hands-on class at the Yocto Project Summit in 2024, because devtool provided invaluable in my Yocto…
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Using Yocto to build images for Orange Pi 3B
Introduction Orange PI 3B is a cheap and attractive Raspberry Pi sized single board computer based on the Rockchip RK3566: The versions with 2 GB / 4 GB / 8 GB of RAM are currently sold at 38 / 44 and 66 EUR on the manufacturer’s AliExpress store. For the same amount of RAM, the…
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Mixing Yocto training and consulting in Italy
Training or consulting? In partnership with Amarula Solutions, I was in discussion with an Italian company, Novavision. Moving to a new hardware platform, they wanted to take the opportunity to gain ownership of the tools that are used to build their products, here Yocto, instead of subcontracting this part of system development as they did…
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Orange Pi RV2 RISC-V board running Linux 6.18-rc1
Introduction Five days ago, I received the Orange Pi RV2 board I ordered. For about 54 EUR / 64 USD (+ shipping), this board has very attractive features, in particular: All this is amazing, and if not for the slower CPU compared to Raspberry Pi 4 (according to reviews I read), this board could be…
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Yocto security: Kernel Hardening
This is another blog post about securing your Yocto built systems: Introduction The Linux kernel is the cornerstone and stronghold of a Linux based system. Unlike user-space applications which run with limited privileges, if it’s compromised, there is almost no limit to what an attacker can do. While nothing is unbreakable, there are two types…
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Yocto bookmark and new training dates
Bookmark After a brief announcement two weeks ago, here is the new Yocto command reference bookmark, in a format you can print and modify, according to the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. In particular, the PDF version is ready to be printed. This way you will get 5 bookmarks on double-sided A4 paper.…