Mastering Embedded Linux Programming - Second Edition

Compiling a device tree

The bootloader and kernel require a binary representation of the device tree, so it has to be compiled using the device tree compiler, dtc. The result is a file ending with .dtb, which is referred to as a device tree binary or a device tree blob.

There is a copy of dtc in the Linux source, in scripts/dtc/dtc, and it is also available as a package on many Linux distributions. You can use it to compile a simple device tree (one that does not use #include) like this:

$ dtc simpledts-1.dts -o simpledts-1.dtbDTC: dts->dts on file "simpledts-1.dts"

Be wary of the fact that dtc does not give helpful error messages and it makes no checks other than on the basic syntax of the language, which means that debugging a typing ...