Preface
Linux has been the mainstay of embedded computing for many years. And yet, there are remarkably few books that cover the topic as a whole: this book is intended to fill that gap. The term embedded Linux is not well-defined and can be applied to the operating system inside a wide range of devices ranging from thermostats to Wi-Fi routers to industrial control units. However, they are all built on the same basic open source software. Those are the technologies that I describe in this book, based on my experience as an engineer.
Technology does not stand still. The industry based around embedded computing is just as susceptible to Moore’s law as mainstream computing. The exponential growth that this implies has meant that a surprisingly large number of things have changed since the first edition of this book was published. This fourth edition is fully revised to use the latest versions of the major open source components, which include Linux 6.6, Yocto Project 5.0 Scarthgap, and Buildroot 2024.02 LTS. In addition to Autotools, the book now covers CMake, a modern build system that has seen increased adoption in recent years.
