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Living in a Linux Embedded World
krow writes: "Embedded.com is running an article where the author is making some assumptions of Linux's use in the embedded markets based on the opinion of one consultant and the fact that Lineo had to lay off some people this year. It's still interesting reading though for some insight into a different world for Linux and there is a nice reference in the comments to the interview of Victor Yodaiken of RTLinux fame by by Kevin Fu on the ACM site."
Linux is making slow progress into an area already claimed by DIY'ers and WindRiver. The massive market acceptance of devices like Tivo is a real feather in Embedded Linux's hat.
The fact that other companies are failing is simply a factor of business, not anything necessarily having to do with the viability of Linux as an embedded platform.
It's a pretty strange coincidence. Today I had to get information about a company for Professional Communications class. I went to the library, picked up an IT trade magazine, and went to the section about emerging companies in the new year. There is apparently a company called Kada Systems. That has created an extremely small JVM that can run very powerful applications on very small portable devices. Take that and your tiny linux kernel, and you're set.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
The people who need the hand-holding which Lineo, etc. are trying to sell, those people are too conservative to choose Linux, they just go with the Microsoft of the embedded word, Wind River.
Like so many things in the computer world, there is a need for education in the Real-Time embedded arena. When I was at the Embedded Systems Conference - Boston 2001, Red Hat's CTO gave a presentation on Embedded Linux, and touted RTLinux as the up and coming 'official' Real Time approach. In a later discussion with him, we agreed what everyone seems be missing here
Most embedded systems are *NOT* hard real time systems. For those that are, there it the RTLinux wrapper that runs Linux as one of it's (lower priority) processes. Yet the people writing for sites like this have no clue and spread FUD, which the unfortunate reader often mistakes as factual.
Will Embedded Linux ever be popular? It all depends on if the Embedded Systems Engineers ever get properly educated as to what it can do, and how. The only real drawback is footprint size. If you need your embedded application to be small and run on 8-bit Microcontrollers, then Embedded Linux clearly isn't for you. However, for the vast majority of serious applications, Moore's law continues to make Embedded Linux a more and more viable solution if the Engineers start addressing the learning curve. Of course, first, they have to know that such an effort is worthwhile. With FUD like this article spreads, it will unfortunately be longer until people get it. No big surprise here. Almost everyhting worth while gets early adopters, goes on hiatus, and then comes back as the new latest and greatest thing that everyone always new was going to fly. You gotta love the cycles of life!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Why didn't your company want to release the kernel mods back to the community? It's not like they were gonna make any money off them - they get paid for the embedded app, not the OS it runs on. I could understand if you were giving away something proprietary, but it doesn't seem to me that releasing those changes would have hurt your company one little bit. In fact, if you had released them, someone else might have come along and improved on your improvements.
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
This is so true, and it's shocking how many people don't even think it through.
Linux is based on Unix, which was origninally designed to be a multi-user Time Sharing System. Look at the early introductory papers about Linux by Thompson and that's what you will read.
For most embedded devices there is no need for multiple users. There is no need for groups. A lot of this can be pared out of the special kernel you need, but if that is the case, why start out with something as complex to start with?
I'm a junior engineer at a small company producing (a fairly killer, IMO) embedded-linux (ix86 atm, but that could change next release) device. Although the RT side of things is not my schtick -- I'm writing some custom web software and working on our in-house embedded-linux distro --- I *do* know that our RT guy is the biggest linux fanatic I know. He seems to have no problems using the RT stuff that's freely available for the linux kernel, and kernel-versus-license-wise, we're simply going to release the stuff we need to keep proprietary (FPGA drivers and firmware-adjustment/config stuff) as kernel module(s).
:)
In fact, RT guy *regularly* slams anything that doesn't have adequate RT support, so I am left to assume that he deems to have a set of RT capabilities which is more than adequate.
We're a small company, and running (like everyone else) under some rather tight fiscal constraints.
AFAIK, linux is what is currently saving our collective bacon -- if we're going to compete with the economies of scale of the big boys (not to mention their 'Deep Pocket Error Correction Algorithm') we can't afford to license some proprietary OS or development environment and pass that cost on to our customers. We have to be clever; therefore, we use Linux.
(Aside: I wish I could provide more details, but really, I'm more of a CS geek. My ideal level of abstraction is somewhere just south of lisp and north of Java. Assembly makes me go *bew*bew*bew*bew* (imgine index finger oscillating in front of lip). )
- undoware.ca
The assumption that all development is in the corporate realm is most evident in this sort of article. Companies come and companies go, but the development of free software and hardware on which it can run goes on with or without corporate backing.
We have a project to develop free hardware designs to which free software is being ported, with no corporate backing. For an example of an embedded controller to which Linux is being ported, look here:
http://freeio.org/library/toast.htm
Soli Deo Gloria
Are there any companies that specifically design embedded Linux development kits for college courses? If any company is interested in becoming successful selling embedded products they should produce low cost versions of their products that can be used in electronic engineering courses. Documentation is also very important. Without good documentation it's difficult to convince people to learn how to use your product.
What many people are overlooking is that embedded systems are not necessarily small...they're just embedded.
The project I'm with at work is a phone switch. We've got dual boards, each with dual 100Mb ethernet, quad serial, fiberchannel, a 450MHz G3 cpu, and a gig of RAM. They run linux.
We looked at QNX, but they would make the required changes to their memory mapping to support our app. We considered Montavista, but decided that we didn't need what they were offering. The kernel mods that have original ideas (intellectual property type stuff) are segregated into a loadable module so that it doesn't need to be GPL'd. All the other incidental stuff will of course be made available to our clients as required.
The biggest advantage of using linux is the sheer user base. Except for the really far-out stuff, almost any normal issue has already been dealt with by someone and its just a matter of looking it up.
While the companies that specialize in embedded linux may not be rolling in the dough, that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of work being done. It may be that companies have simply decided that they can hire a programmer (or a team of them) for less than they could licence a product from another company.