As previously announced, I had the chance to attend the FOSDEM conference again this year. And once again, the famous Bootlin video camera was with me, and I could record a few talks. I’m pleased to make them available today.
Here are the available videos, with my personal comments. Of course, except the talk about CMake, all of them come from the embedded devroom. Thanks to the speakers for sharing their knowledge and presenting their projects !
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Wt, a C++ web toolkit, for rich web interfaces to embedded systems, by Pieter Libin (Noesis Solutions)
Video (44 minutes, 124M)
Presentation of a Web application generator, which generates a Web application including a web server from a C++ description. The C++ design is based on many ideas coming from Qt, which eases the creation of the graphical application. Certainly a very interesting tool for embedded systems. -
Hacking with modular hardware: the BUG, by Ken Gilmer (Bug Labs)
Video (43 minutes, 129M)
The BUG is a set of hardware modules that can be combined together. A base module contains the CPU, memory and other basic components, while additional modules can provide GPS, Wifi, webcam, I/O lines and many others. Of course, it comes with a completely free software SDK. Can be an interesting starting point for prototyping or hobbyist embedded hacking, even though the hardware is quite expensive. -
Building Embedded Linux Systems with PTXdist, by Robert Schwebel (Pengutronix)
Video (68 minutes, 151M)
A very good presentation on why system building tools are needed for Embedded Linux systems (cross-compiling issues, etc.), and how PTXdist fits this need. Even though I’m personally quite fan of Buildroot, PTXdist’s competitor, the presentation was very interesting. 
Development on the OpenMoko with hackable:1, by Pierre Pronchery (Bearstech)
Video (55 minutes, 189M)
A hands-on lab on the OpenMoko, which unfortunately was too short to be really interesting, and restricted to only the 10-12 people at the front of the room. Interesting for the people who did it, probably not so interesting to watch afterwards.- Development and Certification of Linux-Based Fire Safety & Security Systems, by Baurzhan Ismagulov (Siemens)
Video (47 minutes, 124M)
The topic of the talk was really appealing, because the use of free software in environments where human life is in danger has always caused many debates and discussions. Unfortunately, the talk completely misses the point : the speaker spent the whole talk discussing Germany-specific rules and laws for the certification of fire safety and security systems, almost without saying a word on how Linux can match these rules. - Maemo on BeagleBoard, by Juha Kallionen (Nokia)
Video (20 minutes, 51M)
Good talk, but not a lot of content, outside of « Hey, we run Maemo on BeagleBoard, try it !». A kind of announcement talk, I would say. 
Advanced power management for OMAP3, by Peter De Schrijver (Nokia)
Video (49 minutes, 169M)
A very interesting, in-depth, technical talk about the power management features of the OMAP3 CPU and how these features can be used by the Linux kernel.- Emdebian 1.0 release – small and super small Debian, by Neil Williams (Debian)
Video (86 minutes, 257M)
Again, another interesting talk about the status of Emdebian, which has just reached 1.0. Neil described both Emdebian Crush and Emdebian Grip, that are two different approaches for making Debian more suitable for embedded systems. Very good progress has been made, and Emdebian is certainly something that should now be considered as a distribution for embedded systems.
- CMake – what can it do for your project, by Alexander Neundorf
Video (45 minutes, 167M)
A general introduction to CMake, with lots of examples and demonstrations. Very nice for those who never had the opportunity to look at CMake.
I also found Fosdem’s official videos. Very interesting topics are covered!