[PLUG-Devel] ANN: PLUG Devel Meeting, Thursday, June 5th

[Alan Dayley]

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One week from today.  An early announcement for once!

What: PLUG Developer Meeting
When: Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 7:00 PM
Where: Adtron Corporation
Adtron Corporation
4415 E. Cotton Center Blvd., Suite 100
Phoenix, AZ 85040
(Map:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=4415+E.+Cotton+Center+Blvd.+Phoenix+AZ+85040&ie=UTF8&ll=33.402803,-111.986496&spn=0.008473,0.015535&t=h&z=16&iwloc=addr&om=1)

Topics: "Remote Debugging With GDB" and "The Basics of RedBoot"

Remote Debugging With GDB by Walter Mack

Debugging software on an embedded system is often done with very basic
debugging techniques.  A more sophisticated way of debugging (break
points, getting/setting variables interactively, etc), would be nice.

Gdb contains the relatively unknown capability to debug software
remotely. In a remote debugging environment a small "gdb server" program
runs on the target, while the user interface (the client) resides on a
host computer. Server and Client can communicate through a tcp/ip
connection or through a serial port.

This hands-on presentation will show how to use gdb to debug embedded
systems remotely. We will use an ARM-based embedded system and run the
client on an IA32-based Linux PC.

The Basics of RedBoot by Alan Dayley

General purpose computers need a "boot loader" like GRUB or LILO to
startup the operating system.  Just like general purpose computers,
embedded systems also need a boot loader.  Embedded generally means
smaller, less powerful and memory constrained when compared to general
computers.  Because of these restrictions and others like running from
ROM instead of a hard drive, small embedded systems use a boot loader
suited to the task.  One of the more popular ones is called RedBoot.

This hands-on presentation will show how RedBoot is configured on
running ARM-based embedded system.  Discussion will include:
- - What RedBoot is
- - Overview of capabilities
- - Getting RedBoot itself in the ROM
- - Using RedBoot to load a Linux Kernel and root file system
- - Configuring RedBoot

Walter Mack

Walter had been doing embedded development with Linux and other systems
for many years.  His past presentations, such as this one
http://plug.phoenix.az.us/node/458 on "The White Box Design Style" have
been well done and well received.  Here is how he described himself at
that time:

"I have a BS EE in telecommunications technology from the Fachhochschule
Ulm, Germany.  I spent the early part of my career at Intel as a design
engineer for integrated digital circuits. In the 1990s I changed into
software development, initially concentrating on photographic image
processing algorithms and 3D model reconstruction from stereoscopic
photographs. I established Component Software, Inc.
(http://www.componentsw.com/) in 1999 to provide my software engineering
talent to local clients, specializing in embedded systems software
development and the deployment of large distributed systems."

Alan Dayley

Alan is the host for the PLUG Developer Meetings, a software engineer
and now a product engineer at Adtron.  He has been doing embedded
software development since the mid-80's, with a few years of user
application work thrown in the middle.  Active in PLUG since 2000, Alan
and his family are happily 98% MS free at home.

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NO Internet access is available.

We have a candy machine and soda machines that will take your money for
refreshment.  You are welcome to bring your own food.  No alcohol please.

Alan
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