Debug StoriesDebug Stories
An A/B Update That Could Not Read the U-Boot Environment
An i.MX8M Plus board updated cleanly but could not tell which partition it booted. The obvious fix to the U-Boot environment made…
RB Nov 5 · 9 min
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Deep dives, debugging war-stories and career guidance for engineers who work where the kernel meets real hardware.
Debug Stories
InsightsInsights
What Skipping a Kernel Upgrade Costs an Embedded Product
Fixes stop, new CVE identifiers stop and the upgrade keeps growing. What skipping a kernel upgrade costs an embedded product, and what…
RB Nov 5 · 13 min
CareerCareer
The Mid-Career Engineer’s Reset: What to Keep, Deepen, and Relearn
Moving from firmware to embedded Linux does not mean discarding your experience. A five-step audit sorts your habits into keep, deepen and…
RB Nov 5 · 8 min
System DesignSystem Design
Read-Only Root Filesystem on Embedded Linux: Where Should Writable State Live?
A read-only root filesystem still needs writable state. Compare tmpfs, bind mounts on a data partition and overlayfs, and see which one…
RB Nov 4 · 8 min
Edge AIEdge AI
The accel Subsystem: What Linux Standardises About Your NPU, and What It Does Not
The accel subsystem gives every NPU a /dev/accel node and all of DRM's plumbing, but its six in-tree drivers share no ioctls.…
RB Nov 3 · 14 min
NewsNews
Kernel & Embedded News: Linux 7.2 EOL; Yocto 6.1 Blacksail Ships
Linux 7.2 EOL: 7.2.15 ends the series, so move your kernel now. Plus Yocto 6.1 Blacksail, EEVDF latency work in 7.4, and…
RB Nov 3 · 12 min
AutomotiveAutomotive
AGL Kernel Version: What Does Each Board in Vibrant Vimba 22.0.0 Boot?
The AGL kernel is missing from the release notes. File names show 6.18, 6.12, 6.6 and 5.10.194 across Vibrant Vimba 22.0.0 and…
RB Nov 2 · 12 min
InsightsInsights
Bootconfig: Boot Parameters Your Kernel Command Line Cannot Hold
The kernel command line is a fixed-size buffer that truncates without a warning. Bootconfig has carried boot parameters since Linux 5.6.
RB Nov 2 · 17 min
CareerCareer
Why Learning Should Be a Process, Not an End Goal
A goal you finish ends on a date. A skill you keep needs a plan that continues. Here is how to write…
RB Nov 1 · 5 min
TutorialsTutorials
Building Linux for a RISC-V Board — Part 5: Booting a Signed FIT over TFTP
Booting a signed FIT over TFTP on QEMU RISC-V: why verification does not care where the bytes came from, and what the…
RB Nov 1 · 13 min
Deep DivesDeep Dives
What PREEMPT_RT Changes: Forced Interrupt Threading (Part 4)
On PREEMPT_RT, forced interrupt threading moves your handler into a thread, forces IRQF_ONESHOT, and can split one driver into two threads at…
RB Oct 31 · 15 min
Kernel SecurityKernel Security
Linux Kernel CVEs: What to Patch by Device (25 – 31 Oct 2026)
129 Linux kernel CVEs (25 - 31 Oct 2026) with the minimum safe version per branch, including CVE-2026-99128 and CVE-2026-99138, and what…
RB Oct 31 · 14 min
Deep DivesDeep Dives
What PREEMPT_RT Changes: Preemptible Softirqs (Part 5)
On PREEMPT_RT, preemptible softirqs run in task context and local_bh_disable() is a lock, not a counter. Linux 6.18 then dropped that lock…
RB Oct 31 · 16 min
Kernel SecurityKernel Security
Open-Source Device CVEs: What to Patch by Vertical (October 2026)
29 open-source device CVEs across 12 packages in October 2026, from Node.js and curl to GStreamer, with fixed versions and what to…
RB Oct 31 · 20 min
System DesignSystem Design
Debian vs Yocto vs Ubuntu Core: Choosing the Base for an Embedded Linux Product
Debian vs Yocto vs Ubuntu Core: compare update lifetime, control, build effort and vendor dependence, and see when each base suits an…
RB Oct 29 · 8 min
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