Embedded Linux Development

HRDC Registration No.: 10001690636
Duration: 21 hours (3 days)

Course Overview

Embedded Linux Debugging and Performance Optimization provides engineers with practical, hands-on skills to debug, analyze, and optimize Embedded Linux systems in real-world environments. While many engineers understand system internals, diagnosing failures and performance issues in production remains a major challenge.

Through structured troubleshooting methodologies and real-world lab scenarios, participants will learn how to identify root causes of system failures across the boot process, kernel, and user space. The course also covers performance optimization techniques for CPU, memory, and system responsiveness.

Participants will work on intentionally faulty systems to simulate real engineering problems such as boot failures, kernel panics, memory leaks, high CPU usage, and hardware communication issues. By the end of the course, engineers will be able to confidently troubleshoot and optimize Embedded Linux systems in production environments.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Analyze and debug boot failures across bootloader, kernel, and root filesystem
• Interpret kernel logs and system messages to identify system issues
• Apply structured debugging techniques for system crashes and hangs
• Identify and resolve CPU, memory, and I/O performance bottlenecks
• Use professional debugging tools such as perf, ftrace, and strace
• Troubleshoot hardware interface issues such as I2C, SPI, and UART
• Perform root cause analysis for real-world embedded system failures
• Optimize system performance and boot time for production environments

Prerequisites

Participants should have:

• Comfortability with Embedded Linux and Device Drivers
• Familiarity with Embedded Linux concepts, including boot process and kernel basics
• Prior exposure to command-line interface
• Recommended: Completion of Embedded Linux System Internals or equivalent knowledge

Lab Setup

System Requirements

• Linux laptop, Ubuntu 20.04 / 22.04 recommended
• Minimum 8 GB RAM
• 20 GB free disk space
• At least 2 CPU cores

Hardware Requirements

• BeagleBone Black
• USB-to-Serial UART cable
• Ethernet / USB connectivity

Software & Tools

• U-Boot bootloader
• Embedded Linux kernel, including pre-configured and faulty images
• Customized root filesystem
• Debugging tools:
  • dmesg
  • journalctl
  • top
  • htop
  • perf
  • ftrace
  • strace
  • ltrace
  • systemd tools
  • gdb, basic usage
  • i2c-tools

Teaching Methodology

• Instructor-led concept explanation
• Demonstration of real debugging scenarios
• Hands-on lab exercises as the major component
• Guided troubleshooting sessions
• Group discussions and root cause analysis

Target Audience

• Embedded Linux Engineers
• Firmware Engineers
• System Engineers
• BSP Engineers
• Technical Support Engineers
• R&D Engineers working on embedded systems

Target Industry

• Semiconductor
• Telecommunications
• Consumer Electronics
• Automotive
• IoT / Embedded Systems
• Industrial Automation