What we've been reading in April (2025)

Here are the articles, videos, and tools that we’ve been excited about this April.

What have you been reading? Share in the comments or on the Interrupt Slack.

Articles & Learning

• Modern CMake Practices
  A best-practices wiki on how to use “Modern CMake”. Not necessarily directed at embedded systems, but it should provide good insights about how to use CMake well. – Tyler

• Fun with -fsanitize=undefined and Picolibc
  A surprisingly deep look at catching undefined behavior in embedded C code using sanitizers, with examples from real-world libc debugging. – François

• Demystifying the Kernel Boot Sequence
  Thought this was a great low-level Linux article from Bootlin. – Pat

• Making a Smart Bike Dumb (Work Again)
  Reverse engineering a dead smart bike app to restore manual control with a few clean hardware mods. – François

• Clang 21: C++ Improvements
  Interesting rundown of recent C++ improvements in clang. – Noah

• Microchip ATSAM4C32 Vulnerability
  Microchip SAM (former Armel) MCUs pwned. – François

• Unaware and Uncertain: The Stark Realities of Cyber Resilience Act Readiness in Open Source
  Survey shows most of the open source world is still in the dark on CRA — 2027 isn’t far off and everyone’s punting upstream.

• NES RetroAchievements Adapter
  Really cool project that adds achievements to NES games through a cartridge adapter. – Blake

• Rust BLE Troubleshooting
  Rust BLE host stack. – Noah

• RunPyXL GPIO
  Pretty cool, ASIC on FPGA to run Python code directly on silicon. – François

• 8pinLinux: A Minimal Linux Computer
  An interactive-speed Linux computer on a tiny board you can easily build with only 3 8-pin chips. – Noah

News & Announcements

• MCUXpresso SDK 25.03.00
  The new NPX MCUXpresso SDK is out – it uses the Zephyr west tool to manage the SDK, which makes the workflow much easier! A tutorial writeup here. – Noah

• ELD: Open-source Embedded Linker
  Qualcomm is publishing their new linker, eld, targeted for embedded systems. – Tyler

Interrupt Live

• Friday, May 9 – Interrupt Live with Hayden Riddiford
  Hayden Riddiford, Firmware Engineering Lead at Terra Kaffe, joined Tyler to dig into debugging strategies for ill-defined problems, the ones where error codes fall short. Expect real-world examples and practical techniques for identifying and resolving vague system failures in embedded firmware.

• Friday, May 23 – Interrupt Live with Maximilian Köhl
  Maximilian Köhl, Founder & CEO of Silitics, joins Pat Wolfe, Linux Field Engineer at Memfault, to explore how to simplify robust OTA updates for Linux devices. In this live session, Maximilian will discuss Rugix, an open-source tool suite designed to make building custom Linux OS variants with secure over-the-air update support easy. Join us on YouTube Live at 9AM PT | 12PM ET | 6PM CET.

Events

• Tuesday, May 13 – Coredump 08: Navigating the Changing IoT Security Landscape
  Join Memfault’s François Baldassari and Thomas Sarlandie, along with Exein CTO Giovanni Alberto Falcione, for a conversation on the Cyber Resilience Act, the Cyber Trust Mark, and how product teams can stay compliant while maintaining speed. Register to attend live at 8AM PT | 11AM ET | 5PM CET, or to get the recording emailed to you.

• Tuesday, May 27 – Coredump 09: Zephyr’s Meteoric Rise and What It Means for the Future of Embedded
  Kate Stewart, VP of Dependable Embedded Systems at The Linux Foundation, joins Memfault to discuss the accelerating adoption of Zephyr RTOS. The session explores what’s driving the shift toward open source in embedded, and how upcoming security regulations may shape the ecosystem. Bring your questions and join us live at 8AM PT | 11AM ET | 5PM CET.

• Tuesday, June 24 – Catch Blake’s Talk at Open Source Summit NA: Efficient On-Device Core Dump Processing for IoT
  Memfault software engineer Blake Hildebrand presents a Rust-based approach to processing Linux core dumps directly on-device (see his series on Linux Coredumps, Part 1 & Part 2). He’ll walk through minimizing crash sizes, maintaining privacy, and scaling postmortem debugging for production fleets. Talk is scheduled for 9:00 AM MDT in Bluebird Ballroom 2B.

Gillian Minnehan is a firmware solutions architect at Memfault. Gillian previously worked on embedded software teams in space and defense.