MontaVista GPLs Linux Components For CE Devices

An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices reports that MontaVista Software has open-sourced several key software components for Linux-based consumer electronics devices. The company says it hopes the contributions will become part of standard Linux and will foster the evolution of Linux as a platform for digital consumer electronics devices. The open source contributions -- and their SourceForge locations -- include: Dynamic Power Management (DPM) to extend battery life and reduce power consumption; High Resolution POSIX Timers to enhance real-time performance; Variable Scheduling Timeouts (VST) to extend the stand-by time of battery powered devices, such as mobile phones; and Protected RAM File System (PRAMFS) to protect data from errant writes. Additionally, MontaVista says it plans to contribute Prioritized Work Queues (PWQ) technology, to enable prioritization and configurability of driver code for enhanced responsiveness."

Comments

Generous and Wise

[4of12]

It's hard to imagine these going into the mainstream kernel until 2.7 opens up, given the final 2.6.0 testing stages that are being released.

This should really help others wanting to build Linux CE devices.

Plus, it helps to focus the community on one implementation rather than many separate ones, even if that implementation is changed as 2.7 development occurs.

Re:Generous and Wise

[MrResistor]

My first thought was "Damn that's cool!" My Second was "So who are these MontaVista guys, anyway?" My third was "I have no idea how any of that stuff is going to be useful to me, since I don't own a laptop or build embedded devices."

Then of course I was reminded of the true beauty of Linux, which is that someone else will probably figure out how that stuff will be useful to me and incorporate it into the next kernel, and I'll probably never notice beyond the nebulous "Gee, Linux just keeps getting better" feeling I get everytime I update.

It's still damned cool, though, and what a great way for a company to get themselves some good press!

Re:Generous and Wise

[simcop2387]

Well the High Res Posix Timers should help for getting things more responsive, i mean if it helps programs and software to do more real time work (e.g. physics engines in games) then i think its great, this could also help for video capture, because i think that you could then maybe use this to help capture frames at a higher rate and more accurately, (e.g. setting an alarm at smaller fractioins of a second) though i could be wrong at whether that would be affected by the timers, but i do know that physics simulations could probably help considerably by this.

Re:Generous and Wise

[Anonymous Coward]

That may have been a concious decision. If they don't go into the mainstream kernel for the 2.6 cycle, that means: you use montavista's kernel tree to get the features, and that "encourages" you to choose montativista for support + consultancy, eh?

Re:Generous and Wise

[Anonymous Coward]

You must do a lot of trolling if your score is zero and you're actually logged in..

Awesome.

[Rimbo]

Well, I -have- been doing work with embedded Linux for the past 2 years, and boy howdy I can't tell you how cool this is to me. I know of at least two of these features we may be able to use -right f'ing now- and I'm pretty sure we can use the others as well.

I've worked with Monta Vista before; they were recommended to us by Intel for working with the new Xscale processor line. Now I see why. Wish I was using MV's kernel now.

Maybe that can be arranged...

SCO

[eurleif]

Wonder how SCO owns these?