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Tools for Development
Increasing numbers of embedded developers are turning to Linux as the preferred software platform to support compute-intensive applications in networking, wireless infrastructure, storage and imaging. The PowerPC 440 system-on-chip processors, in particular, offer the customer a variety of hardware solutions for these market segments.
It is therefore wise to become familiar with developing and optimizing applications using development tools for specific PowerPC devices running an embedded Linux operating system with an array of cross-development tools.
Early embedded-Linux developers migrating from legacy operating systems discovered they were able to achieve significant time-to-market savings by resetting their tool-centric expectations to a paradigm that emphasized the power of the Linux kernel, direct access to source and native command-line user interfaces. This is not to say that development tools are lacking with Linux. Since the earlier days of embedded Linux, a wide-ranging suite of powerful tools, designed to suit the tastes of developers more accustomed to IDE-based "studio" environments, has emerged through open-source and commercial sources. But it is also important to understand the underlying Linux development process.
As with any embedded target, developers must bootstrap the embedded CPU over a network (bootp/tftp) or via serial download. Typically, the next step is to mount a root file system from an exported directory (via NFS) on the host system.
Such an approach provides developers with transparent, seamless access between...