TutorialsTutorials
Cross-Compile the Linux Kernel for ARM64 and Boot It in QEMU
Cross-compile the Linux kernel for ARM64, build a BusyBox initramfs, and boot the system in QEMU using exact, reproducible commands and expected…
RB Sep 11 · 7 min
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Field notes from the Linux trenches
Deep dives, debugging war-stories and career guidance for engineers who work where the kernel meets real hardware.
Tutorials
Debug StoriesDebug Stories
Debug Story: A Spurious Interrupt Storm That Disabled a Shared IRQ
A shared, level-triggered interrupt line was disabled after a "nobody cared" spurious interrupt storm. Here is how the kernel detects it and…
RB Sep 11 · 9 min
System DesignSystem Design
Secure Boot Key Custody: Who Holds the Signing Key?
Secure boot key custody decides where your firmware signing key lives. Compare build-tree keys, restricted servers, HSM signing and detached signing.
RB Sep 10 · 8 min
CareerCareer
Four Levels of Knowing. Most Engineers Misjudge Which One They Are On.
Familiarity, recall, understanding and competence are four different things, and effort spent at the wrong one produces no progress. What fails first…
RB Sep 10 · 12 min
InsightsInsights
Your Product Has Five Support Clocks. Most Plans Track One.
An embedded Linux support lifecycle has five clocks, not one date. Build the register: kernel, layer, build system, silicon and your own…
RB Sep 9 · 16 min
NewsNews
Kernel & Embedded News: Arm64 Drops Big-Endian, Boots CPUs in Parallel
Arm64 queues big-endian removal for Linux 7.4 and proposes parallel CPU onlining via PSCI. Plus 7.3-rc2 fixes, Buildroot 2026.08, and AI crawler…
RB Sep 8 · 11 min
Deep DivesDeep Dives
Embedded Linux Observability: What to Instrument on a Device You Cannot Reach
eBPF observability for embedded Linux in three layers: in-kernel instrumentation, structured events, and the power regressions logs never show.
RB Sep 8 · 13 min
TutorialsTutorials
Real-Time Linux with PREEMPT_RT — Part 5: Tracing Latency Sources with ftrace
A high latency number tells you a problem exists, not where it comes from. This final part of the series covers tracing…
RB Sep 7 · 9 min
CareerCareer
Ten Years of Work Is Not Ten Years of Experience.
Two engineers with the same years on their CV are often far apart, and talent explains less of it than it appears…
RB Sep 6 · 8 min
TutorialsTutorials
Buildroot for Embedded Linux — Part 2: Adding Packages and a BR2_EXTERNAL Tree
Set up a Buildroot BR2_EXTERNAL tree so your defconfig and board files live outside the Buildroot source, then build out of tree…
RB Sep 6 · 13 min
Kernel SecurityKernel Security
Linux Kernel CVEs: What to Patch by Device (30 Aug – 5 Sep 2026)
188 Linux kernel CVEs (30 Aug-5 Sep 2026) with the minimum safe version per branch - including CVE-2026-80789, CVE-2026-80795 and what to…
RB Sep 5 · 29 min
Debug StoriesDebug Stories
The SPDX Tasks That Refused to Die: A BitBake Parse-Order Mystery
An image recipe inherited nospdx, yet the SPDX tasks ran anyway and the build failed on a missing rootfs-packages.json. The culprit was…
RB Sep 5 · 12 min
InsightsInsights
What the Yocto LTS Covers, and What It Does Not
The Yocto LTS covers linux-yocto and OE-Core for four years, but not vendor layers. Here is the line, and how to tell…
RB Sep 4 · 14 min
AutomotiveAutomotive
What a Linux Safety Certification Actually Covers
A Linux safety certification covers a defined configuration on named hardware, not the kernel. What ISO/PAS 8926:2024 changed, and how to read…
RB Sep 4 · 19 min
CareerCareer
The Code Is Yours. The Understanding Is Not.
A forward-port stalls on a patch nobody can explain. Nothing in the tree is broken — what is missing was never in…
RB Sep 3 · 7 min
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