Tutorials

Tutorial Day, October 26, 2010
The tutorial sessions are now sold out. Thank you to our attendees for making this a successful event!

Location: DeVere University of Arms Hotel, Cambridge
Room: Churchill Suite

Agenda
9:00 to 12:30: Workshop 1 "The Embedded Linux Quick Start Guide"
(There will be a break mid morning)
1:00 to 2:00: Lunch
2:00 to 5:30: Workshop 2 "What else can you do with Android?"
(There will be a break mid afternoon)

Workshop 1, "The Embedded Linux Quick Start Guide"

October 26, 2010, 9:00-12:30
Format: Half-day workshop with demonstrations and hand-outs

Thinking of using Linux on your next embedded project but not sure where to begin? This workshop shows how it is done. Beginning with a blank development board, it will show you how to bring up Linux and and get to a login prompt - all in half a day. The workshop covers the four
elements of embedded Linux on which every embedded Linux project depends: toolchain, bootloader, kernel and root file system. It describes each one and shows typical examples in the course of the live
demonstration, all based on free open source projects.Trainer: Chris Simmonds, see below.

Preparation
The tutorial includes a hands-on session using Hitex LPC3250-stick modules kindly donated by NXP.
To participate in the hands-on session you will need to do some preparation
beforehand. You will need:

  • A laptop with an Ethernet port. It should have a version of Linux installed, for
    example Ubuntu 10.04, and have these packages installed
    • patch
    • ncurses-devel
    • nfs-kernel-server
    • tftpd-hpa
    • minicom

  • 1 Ethernet loop-back cable

  • For those arriving from outside the UK, remember that the power sockets in the room are UK type: you may need a converter to be able to plug your laptop in

You will also need to download a couple of files. You are strongly urged to do this ahead of the workshop because the network is likely to become congested on the day. First you need to install a toolchain.

If you are running 32-bit Linux on your laptop, download this file:
http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/toolchains/angstrom-2010.4-test-20100422-i686-linux-armv5te-linux-gnueabi-toolchain-qte-4.6.2.tar.bz2

For 64-bit Linux, download this one:
http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/toolchains/angstrom-2010.4-test-20100421-x86_64-linux-armv5te-linux-gnueabi-toolchain-qte-4.6.2.tar.bz2

And you will need this file:
http://www.embedded-linux.co.uk/downloads/elce-2010-linuxquickstart.tar.bz2

Workshop 2, "What else can you do with Android?"

October 26, 2010, afternoon session, 2:00-5:30
Format: Half-day workshop with demonstrations and hand-outs

Android is not just for mobile phones: it is an embedded operating system suitable for many different types of device. Typical applications include medical equipment, test equipment and multimedia consumer devices. The advantages of Android are a rich set of APIs for writing user interfaces and communicating with other devices, a good development environment and an active developer community, all backed by Google.

This workshop shows you how Android is put together, and how you can implement it on custom hardware. Key topics include: the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), kernel patches, implementing native interfaces in 'C' and writing application code in Java. Along the way it will show how
the Android Developer Toolkit (ADT) plug-in for Eclipse makes it easy to develop and debug code both on the target hardware and also on the development system using an emulator. Trainer: Chris Simmonds, see below.

Preparation
The tutorial includes a hands-on session. To participate, you will need a laptop with a version of Linux installed, for example Ubuntu 10.04 and you will need to install the ant package.

You will also need to download some files. You are strongly urged to do this ahead of the workshop because the network is likely to become congested on the day.

First you will need a version of Oracle/Sun Java. Unless you are planning to build the full Android Open Source Project, which would take more than an afternoon, you should install the java6 package for your Linux, or go to http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java and download the current Java SE
JDK. If, on the other hand you do plan to build the AOSP, maybe in your hotel room in
the evening, you need to install the Java 5 JDK.

Next, you need the Android SDK which you can get by going to http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html and downloading androidsdk_r07-linux_x86.tgz.

Then, get a copy of the Android Native Development Kit (NDK) from http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html.

Finally, if you want to use Eclipse to develop Android apps, which is optional, you will
need a copy of the Helios release from www.eclipse.org.

About Chris Simmonds
Chris Simmonds is a freelance consultant who has been using Linux in embedded systems for over 10 yeas and has been teaching other engineers how to do it for more than half of that time. He has run courses and workshops for many well-known companies including ARM, Intel and HP. You can see some of his work on the "Inner Penguin" blog at www.embedded-linux.co.uk.

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