Fermilab, Batavia, Illinois, USA
Developers of real-time embedded software often need to build the operating system kernel, tools and supporting applications from source to work with the differences in their hardware configuration. The first attempt to introduce Linux-based real-time embedded systems into the Fermilab accelerator controls system used this approach but it was found to be time-consuming, difficult to maintain and difficult to adapt to different hardware configurations. Buildroot is an open source build system with a menu-driven configuration tool (similar to the Linux kernel build system) that automates this process. A customized Buildroot system has been developed for use in the Fermilab accelerator controls system that includes several hardware configuration profiles (including Intel, ARM and PowerPC) and packages for Fermilab support software. A bootable image file is produced containing the Linux kernel, shell and supporting software suite that varies from 3 to 20 megabytes large ' ideal for network booting. The result is a platform that is easier to maintain and deploy in diverse hardware configurations.
