Editor's Note: Linux remains an attractive option for embedded systems developers. In fact, industry surveys such as the Embedded Market Study by UBM (EDN's parent company) consistently show interest ...

I did something recently I haven’t done in a long time: I recompiled the Linux kernel. There was a time when this was a common occurrence. You might want a feature that the default kernel didn’t ...

Many useful computer security tool ideas have a common genesis: the cracker world. Tools, like port scanners and password crackers, originally designed to aid black-hats in their attempts to ...

When you write programs in user space, the worst thing that can happen to your program is a core dump. Your program did something very wrong, so the operating system decided to give you all of its ...

The Linux kernel mailing list (LKML) has returned to the oft-discussed topic of binary kernel modules. Considered by some to be a violation of the open source license used by the Linux kernel, binary ...

Kernel modules are chunks of code that are loaded and unloaded into the kernel as needed, thus extending the functionality of the kernel without requiring a reboot. In fact, unless users inquire about ...

An operating system's kernel manages resources, handles system calls, governs hardware access, and controls processes. The ...