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The Status of the QNX OS

Posted by michael on from the how-do-you-pronounce-that-again? dept.

Eugenia writes "OS enthusiast Thom Holwerda gave a spin to the latest version of QNX RTOS, a very capable OS that unfortunately doesn't get a lot of press. With the recent sale of QNX Software to Harman International the future of the free-for-personal-usage version of the RTOS is uncertain. Nevertheless, the article presents quite a few aspects of the OS, including an introduction of the Neutrino kernel, installation, the Photon MicroGUI, hardware support, usability and more."

4 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. The *amazing* 1.44 MB Demo Disk by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 2, Informative

    That demo disk was truly amazing. One disk, needing only a 486 with 16 MB of ram (or was it even 8?) that gave you an OS, GUI, web browser and server, and all amazingly fast.

    I recently tried running some OSes under the QEMU emulator; most of them crawled, but QNX screamed. I find it fantastic. I can't get over the fact it won't install in extended partitions on PCs, though.

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    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    1. Re:The *amazing* 1.44 MB Demo Disk by Brandybuck · · Score: 4, Informative

      I can't get over the fact it won't install in extended partitions on PCs, though.

      That's because extended partitions are a Microsoft thing designed for Microsoft operating systems. The only reason Linux does it is because Linux was specifically designed for a dual booting PC architecture. BSD doesn't do it, Solaris doesn't do it, and QNX doesn't do it.

      Way back when, you installed an OS into its own partitition. Within that partition the OS could organize things however it wanted. UNIX decided to subpartition things one particular way. Then LATER Microsoft decided to do things completely different and did the extended/logical partition thing. Unfortunately, their scheme is totally f*cked. For example, you can only subpartition the last partition.

      The easiest way around this is to simply use primary partitions. Windows will bitch at you, because Microsoft decided in their less infintessimal wisdom that you should only have one primary partition, but you can still do it. Give Windows partition four, and put QNX on one, two or three.

      p.s. Of course, it doesn't help matters that manufacturers decided to ship systems with one giant 120Gb extended partition, but hey, that's not my fault either.

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      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
  2. Re:Open Source QNX by squiggleslash · · Score: 2, Informative

    I remember seeing ads for QNX back in the mid-eighties in various (UK) computer magazines. I'm pretty sure QNX predates the start of development of the HURD.

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    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  3. Re:Open Source QNX by Curtman · · Score: 5, Informative

    Very true. QNX began around 1980, and ran on 8088 and 6809 machines. Apparently QNX was originally called Qunix ("Quick UNIX") until AT&T asked (threatened) them that they had better change the name. Quite an interesting history behind it actually.

    Note for the humour impaired: Just for the record, I wasn't being serious.