RE: [tlug] OT: Please educate me...

[Jake Morrison <jake_morrison@example.com>]

Rena,

Embedded linux has a couple of areas that would not come up
for a normal Unix programmer or administrator, even if they had a 
lot of experience:

Experience programming Linux device drivers (the parts that let the 
Linux kernel talk to the hardware, particularly custom hardware used 
in specialized devices). This is quite specific to Linux, though 
experience writing other Unix device drivers or other embedded 
systems programming is helpful. 

Experience with rather low-level system initialization details, e.g. 
how the system loads itself off of the hard disk in stages.
In embedded systems there are specialized loaders which work from
flash memory chips and special file systems (disk formats). 
Most normal programmers or systems administrators just work with 
the standard grub or lilo boot loaders. People with experience setting
up
servers with high-availability/clustering would tend to understand this
better
than average.

Experience with embedded CPUs, e.g. ARM or MIPS. These are 
common in the embedded world, but not the standard Unix world. 

Deep experience with the Linux development toolchain, e.g. the C
compiler (gcc) and other components like binutils/glibc and how build
them on 
a development machine (host) for use with the embedded computer
(target).
Most programers are happy to just use the compiler installed 
on the system and don't build it themselves unless they really care
about 
the latest support for language features. 

If the position requires selling WindRiver's enhanced Linux development
tools, then the candidate would need to thoroughly understand the
existing development environment on Linux and its strengths/weaknesses.


And, as others have mentioned, Linux evangelism experience is 
probably a plus.

Real hackers and systems programmers love to get into these kinds of 
details, but generic Unix/Linux experience as a programmer or systems
administrator might not get there. 

If you see someone with Linux From Scratch on their resume (or, to 
a lesser extent, Gentoo Linux), then you are getting close. But you are
really looking for people who write Linux device drivers for fun :-).

Regards,
Jake