How Embedded C/C++ Toolchains Work

Speaker: Keith Packard

Track: Embedded Applications

Type: Long talk (45 minutes)

Room: Grand amphi

Time: Jul 19 (Sat): 09:30

Duration: 0:45

We’ve got a bunch of embedded C/C++ toolchains, but no real unifying strategy. GCC comes from a variety of sources; the supported C and C++ libraries vary and we don’t provide any strong guidance as to how to pick a useful option and get started.

In particular, the default C library for many toolchains is newlib, which isn’t a great choice for embedded systems due to its large memory footprint and lack of rigorous testing on embedded platforms.

This presentation will describe the current situation, explaining how we got here over the last several releases. Next, we’ll dig into how to use an embedded toolchain including a demonstration of building and running code on real hardware. Finally, I’ll propose some changes in what we package and how we can steer users in a better direction so they can get things working faster and easier.

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