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RT Linux Patches
sally bitter writes "Linux 2.6 kernel Real-Time? It is going to happen soon. Montavista developers submitted patches today to LKML to begin testing all the low latency task preempt and interrupt stuffs they're introducing."
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Not necessarily. Those aren't the only two choices: Realtime Solaris and QNX RTOS are also possibilities. Even better, they could stop trying to add DVD players to my engine-management unit. I don't feel there's anything compelling missing from my current car, which has a number of separate systems and a fairly simple (so far as I can tell) EMU which co-ordinates their efforts,
The linux (kernel.org) codebase is not really stable enough to meet the needs of embedded systems. If someone wants to build an embedded controller for a car they'll need a stable embedded OS for at least 9 months before they start production -- 6 months to write the software and testcases, and 3 months to test and debug at a minimum. During this time, there is no benefit to selecting linux -- you aren't getting the new features because you've frozen the kernel; however, there is a downside to selecting linux -- bugs which surface later (perhaps in the testing phase) will not be fixed in the form of a patch to your level.
That suggests you need to buy your linux embedded from a commercial venture, to ensure it's supported. At which point, linux needs to be judged against the commercial competition; it will probably lose that battle because the commercial ones will be certified compliant to a myriad standards, and linux won't be. Certification is important to establish a chain-of-blame should anything go wrong.
Phil
I guess today is a passable day to die.
Are there any benefits for the senior noob who can patch and compile the kernel with the RT features.
No. Real time functionality is not just "better latency". Real time stuff is generally significantly less efficient than traditional schedulers. It's useful for specialized work -- this is not "better desktop" or "better server" for anything approaching the typical Linux end user.
If you're doing control work with Linux, then you might be interested.
May we never see th