All you need to know to use make the Linux kernel support your own hardware.
Overview
Everything you need to know to make the Linux kernel boot on your new embedded board and write drivers for its specific hardware devices. Learn how to describe your hardware with the device tree, and debug the kernel code (written by yourself or by the community).
Also learn how to contribute changes back to the upstream version of Linux, to reduce your own maintenance costs, make support for your hardware ubiquitous and enjoy contributions from the Linux kernel developer community.
Using progressive but challenging practical labs and varied techniques to make the learning always stimulating and fun, and above all to make it stick. At least 75% of the time is dedicated to practical activities. Learn by doing!
Description
| Delivery | In-person (all continents) or online, public or private session |
| Language | English or French |
| Mix | 25% theory – 75% practical activities – Learn by doing! |
| Duration | 5 days (in-person), 32 hours (online) |
| Hardware | BeaglePlay board with TI Sitara AM625 SoC (ARM64) |
| Linux kernel version | 6.12 (LTS) used in practical labs |
| Prerequisites | Familiarity with the Linux command line |
Upcoming sessions
| Trainer | Dates | Cost | Register |
| Michael Opdenacker | Jul 15-18, 22-25, online 15:00 to 19:00 UTC+2 Seats left | 2,490 EUR 1, 2, 3 |  |
1 We want our training to be accessible to individuals around the world. If our standard rate is a barrier due to local income levels, please apply anyway — we’ll do our best to offer a suitable price.
2 Individuals (all countries, not paying through a company) are subject to + 20% V.A.T. However, we offer a discount on the base cost to cancel the impact of V.A.T. and keep the same total price. See also 1.
3 Only for French companies: + 20% V.A.T.
Available discounts
The below discounts can be combined, up to a limit of 400 EUR per participant.
- 200 EUR returning participant discount for any extra course taken by the same participant at most 12 months after another one.
- 200 EUR early bird discount for any registration at least 2 months before the session dates.
- 200 EUR extra participant discount for each participant from the same entity (same invoicing address) in addition to the first one.
If V.A.T. is applicable, it applies to the amounts before V.A.T.
Private sessions
This course can be taught in a private session anywhere in the world, either in your company’s premises or online.This offers more privacy and allows for customization options.
Agenda
Part 1: Configuring, building, booting and kernel modules
- Demo: Build a Linux kernel for a different board and boot it.
- Big picture: bootloader, kernel and user-space.
- Get a cross-compiling toolchain.
- Retrieve Linux kernel sources. Understand the Linux release process and choose a version for your project.
- Configure the Linux kernel. Guided tour of most interesting options.
- Cross-compile the kernel. Speed up this build.
- Boot the kernel from the bootloader. Device Tree and kernel command line
- Kernel coding constraints. Writing a kernel module.
Part 2: Device model – Bus, drivers and devices
- How the kernel abstracts and binds busses, devices and drivers.
- Case of busses supporting device enumeration: USB and PCI
- Platform devices and drivers.
- Device Tree: how to describe hardware that cannot be detected.
- Example: the I2C bus.
- Pin multiplexing.
- Writing an I2C device driver – Exchange your first bytes with the hardware.
- Device tree validation
Part 3: Kernel frameworks, memory and I/O
- Character driver operations: read, write, ioctl(). Exchanging data with user-space.
- Kernel frameworks: abstracting devices in user-space.
- Example: the input subsystem.
- Completing the I2C driver: exposing device data to userspace.
- Kernel memory allocation – Understanding memory usage statistics.
- Reserving and mapping I/O memory (registers).
- Application: write data to board serial ports.
Part 4: Interrupts, deferring work, locking
- Application: allow user space to write to serial ports.
- Processes and scheduling. Waiting for a condition.
- Support for interrupts to process hardware events.
- Application: read data received on the serial ports.
- Managing concurrency issues. Lock based and lock-less primitives. Debugging locks.
- Torture the serial driver using full kernel preemption. Expose bugs due to concurrency issues and fix them through locking.
- Direct Memory Access (DMA): illustration on a network driver
Part 5: Board support, debugging, testing and contribution
- How to support a new board. How SoCs are supported.
- Available techniques for kernel debugging.
- Debug and fix a broken kernel driver with multiple issues.
- Kernel testing.
- Performance analysis with perf and ftrace.
- Kernel development best practices: error handling, coding conventions, using the checkpatch.pl script.
- Locate specific issue by bisecting kernel code.
- How to contribute to the upstream Linux kernel.
- Add your name to kernel history by submitting your first patch(es).
- Getting involved: ideas for kernel contribution.
- Conferences and useful resources.
- Q&A session.
What is provided?
| In-person public sessions | In-person private sessions | Online public sessions | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electronic board and all its required accessories, for the duration of the course | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Lunch, morning and afternoon breaks | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Electronic copies of the lecture and practical lab materials. | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Solutions to practical labs | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Video recordings of the lectures from the trainer. | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Electronic training certificate, after successful completion of the course, which can be shared on your LinkedIn profile and on other social media. | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
What’s special in our courses?
Majority of practical activities, representing at least 75% of learning time.
Short lectures only: sequences of theory never exceed 30 minutes, and are interleaved with quick or longer practice. Too long series of lectures are hard to digest, especially in an online setting.
Technical and teaching experience: courses taught by an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in embedded Linux and 30 years using and advocating for Free and Open Source Software.
See also: Why choose Root Commit courses?
FAQ
Q: Will I get solutions to the practical labs?
A: Yes, C code and Device Tree solutions are shared at the end of each lab.
Q: In-house sessions: can practical labs be run on the CPU that my project uses?
A: The Linux kernel tries to offer the same mechanisms for all types of hardware, so most of what you learn on another platform should apply on other ones as well. Another reason to stick with our standard instructions is that the some drivers we develop during the labs depend on the CPU being driven, in particular its hardware registers. Therefore porting our practical labs to different hardware remains possible, if you are ready to accept additional preparation costs.
See also our FAQ for all types of courses and our sustainability efforts.