Suggested resources for newbie ARM programmer?

Question

I'm starting develop an application in embedded arm board from http://www.embeddedarm.com. I'm a newbie in developing embedded applications. I would like resources like books, online guides that will get me started in to develop applications in embedded arm. I was planing to use Linux as the OS.

Answer 1

Take a look at www.gnuarm.com. Embedded.com also has some articles on ARM.

Answer 2

Once everything is running, it is mainly linux programming. If you start with an eval board, I guess you have already a lot of tools. Anyway, you might find the following links useful.

Toolchain : cross-compilation. You can go the easy way, ie download a pre built toolchain from code sourcery. Or you can go the hard way, and build your own toolchain. The hard way is however made easier if you use the right tool. Croostool-ng is sucha project with a very reactive mailing list.

Kernel : well, arm architecture has been in mainline for a while, however, if you have some ARM specific question, you should definitly ask them there

Userspace : Once the kernel is booting, you need a userspace to run, ie some filesystem, shell, C library, init process etc ... To build such tools, there are many options. One is to do everything yourself. You start with busybox, and then continue with the various tools you need. Or you can go with automated and configurable tools. My preference goes to ptxdist, because it has the right complexity level (for my use). Another options is buildroot which I don't know. And if you feel you need something more powerful maybe you can take a look at OpenEmbedded.

I came across som books related to embedded development, but it was more like documented scripts. Building a complete embedded system is hard, and I think you will find more infos in the tools and mailing list than in books.

Answer 3

At some point you'll need to understand some level of ARM Assembly language. "ARM System Developer's Guide" by Andrew Sloss, et al is a really good book for ARM assembly.

Answer 4

If you have a TS-7000 series board you may want to subscribe to the TS-7XXX mailing list.

Answer 5

Another great embedded linux resource is Embedded Linux: Hardware Software & Interfacing, run by the author of that book. He provides several samples for working with Embedded Linux, most of which are run on the TS-7XXX platform.