Download Embedded Xinu Documentation

Embedded Xinu Documentation, Release master
Xinu-disk’s ability to synchronize with a “moving-target” backend is somewhat rudimentary – you may occasionally
see the handshake fail upon startup. Just close out the mips-console session normally, close the xinu-disk
process with a “Control-C”, and try again.
The command xinu-status will list the users on each backend, and xinu-status -c uart will list the users
on each backend’s second serial port. Also recall that a user can bump another user off of a specific backend after 10
minutes of activity.
The pages linked to here help an instructor understand how to incorporate Embedded Xinu into a course for his or her
department’s curriculum. Each of the models is based on an existing course that has been run at Marquette or one of
our partner schools.
6.11 Operating Systems Tracks
6.11.1 Student Built Xinu
Main article: Student Built Xinu
A student built operating system puts the student in the trenches of operating system development. The student
will become intimately involved with the inner workings of an operating system. This will give the student a better
understanding of the various systems that work together behind the scenes while an operating system is running.
Operating systems topics that can be incorporated in a student built Xinu course include: memory management,
scheduling, concurrent processing, device management, file systems and others.
6.11.2 Student Extended Xinu
Main article: Student Extended Xinu
Students will learn to extend an operating system by adding kernel level and user level applications. Given a functional
Embedded Xinu operating system the students will have to understand and manipulate existing operating system code
to create additional operating system features. To add more applications to the operating system students will have to
understand the interactions between the program in design and the operating system’s device and kernel interaction
calls. Programming for embedded devices allows students to engage in development on small resource constrained
environments. Through extending the existing Embedded Xinu operating system a student learns to use and understand
code not written by the student and develops advanced operating system concepts.
6.12 Networking
6.12.1 Networking With Xinu
Main article: Networking with Xinu
A networking course incorporating Embedded Xinu can have students build networking functionality into Embedded
Xinu over the period of the course. Courses may vary in starting point; some choosing to use a core Embedded
Xinu release and having students build the entire network stack and ethernet driver. While others may choose an
Embedded Xinu release with the ethernet driver available so that the students can concentrate on other parts of the
network stack. Network stack implementation assignments for students can parallel various networking lectures that
traverse the stack over the course of the semester, terminating in the students implementing an application that uses
the developed network stack.
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Chapter 6. Teaching with Embedded Xinu