Interest in Embedded Linux Remains Low

burnin1965 writes "According to EE Times interest in embedded linux remains low. I was surprised to see their headline considering I just purchased a Sony TV which runs linux and I assisted my brother in setting up an Actiontec DSL modem which runs linux. A few years back I had only heard of devices that ran embedded linux and now that they are starting show up everywhere interest is low? The survey did bring up three issues which should be addressed by the embedded linux community, whether those issues are misconceptions or actual problems. 1) Incompatibility with software, applications, and drivers. 2) Performance or real time capability. And 3) support."

Comments

What the companies should be doing perhaps

[Neo-Rio-101]

Perhaps this is just a wake up call to companies who support embedded Linux to perhaps spend more on advertising and marketing (i.e. "hello world, we support Linux embedded because we made a pile of decent kernel patches so we can be trusted.")

Compatibility testing, and wedging in those RTOS kernel patches and supporting those where appropriate can't be a bad thing either.

Is interest low or do these devices simply work?

[DrXym]

My feeling is the latter. My Netgear ADSL modem / firewall uses embedded Linux. If not for a "debug mode" hidden in the advanced settings which enables you to SSH into a busybox shell, I wouldn't know nor care. The thing just works and it works very well. I expect millions of people are running Linux in their homes in their modems, TVs, audio / DVD players, washing machines or elsewhere and simply don't know it.

big surprise.

[nblender]

Hardware designers generally start with an eval-board of some sort so they can hack up their add-on hardware and get something running on the bench before drawing schematics on napkins and starting to do a layout. As such, they need a 'board support package'. You generally buy that from an embedded systems vendor. You generally don't just download the latest linux kernel and start porting drivers and vm maps. Your management will likely want you to get a BSP from a commercial vendor to whom they pay maintenance so your engineers can hassle them about bugs in the bootloader, etc... Your choices are limited. Generally something like Montavista, Windriver, QNX. In my experience, Montavista makes it hard to do business with them. You practically have to bribe them to talk to you in the first place; even when you're waving around PO's. You've already bought the hardware from Intel or RadiSys and now you need support for the BSP. When you finally get a price, it's $18k per seat for a GCC license, and support is $5k/year; maximum of 5 incidents.

QNX on the other hand, will practically send an engineer on site to hold your hand while you get your BSP running. Support is cheap and the runtime licenses are down in the noise threshold.

Sure, QNX has a few issues. So does VxWorks. But Linux is a real lose, and I've tried.

Frankly, if I was starting from scratch and rolling my own BSP, I'd choose NetBSD. Embedded friendly license, code purity, and it probably already has your processor arch.

Re:big surprise.

[korbin_dallas]

Yup you got it. Thats absolutely right about MontaVista, Eval Boards and licensing costs. Although I will add a few more tokens to the mix.

Another thing that happens is if your product uses DSPs, the hardware people will expect that you will not even use an embedded OS and write the application directly to hardware. As one HW engineer told me, "Its very easy, what do you mean you need a driver? When I did it it was just one line of C code (to write data to memory)." Once I pointed out we were upgrading the HW to use the 400,000 lines of code we ALREADY wrote and tested...

Our product line is just now evaluating a PPC core due to physical dimension and power problems in a new product. The other older product parts use x86 PC104 cards, not really embedded, more like tinyPC. But we rolled our own Linux OS to do the things we want.

The other thing I note, is that large companies, really do love to throw piles of money at problems.

Re:It's about economics

[Anonymous Coward]

A product I worked on which sold in the tens of units used Linux. The choice was obvious, the open nature of the system was a compelling factor in choosing it. Not being at the mercy of vendor support to fix problems was a big help too.

I have to say, those in the know would use Linux, those not in the know would use something else.

Re:GPL?

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I understood this, the GP wasn't only talking about companies, but more about guys/gals like him/her that spend their free time making a contribution and want to see a little - fame doesn't pay bills - in return.

See, here's the problem. The original poster is talking about "spending money developing a product" where apparently his idea of "spending money" was surfing to www.kernel.org and downloading linux. At least he bothered to read the rules and realized his money was better spent downloading BSD.

If he wants to "develop a product" and do whatever the hell he wants with it, he should develop the product as opposed to whining that he can't use someone else's work without following their rules. Linksys and all these others who were "surprised" by the GPL are exactly the same: they cut corners, didn't read the rules, and it came back and bit them.

Re:Dlink

[Directrix1]

I've just finished making an embedded linux device using the zaurus hardware. Linux is a god send for smaller companies wanting to make embedded applications on the cheap and easily. I went from newly purchased Zaurus to a complete system with a completely new flashed openzaurus with my application and only the supporting libs we needed in under 2 months. The three points mentioned in the article 1) Incompatibility with software, applications, and drivers *complete bullshit, most linux software is C not asm so it compiles just as well in most cases* 2) Performance or real time capability *There are realtime patches you can apply to the kernel, but I never had to use them so I can't comment directly on this* 3) support *free support, you get what you pay for. The source is there if they really need answers*. That has been my experience with it. As far as actual usage goes, I can't imagine why embedded linux uptake would be slow. I know just for a few things: my Dish network DVR's use it, my Linksys router uses it, and I know of lots of cellphones which use it. Its easy to program for. There are copious freely available and powerful software libs. You get great support from the community if you actually contribute patches. Its almost stupid not to use Linux.