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Embedded Linux Conference Headlined By Drones

Posted by Soulskill on from the penguins-can-fly dept.

DeviceGuru writes: The Linux Foundation has released the full agenda for its annual North American Embedded Linux Conference + Android Builders Summit, which takes place Mar. 23-25 in San Jose, Calif. The ELC, which this year is titled Drones, Things, and Automobiles, increasingly reflects new opportunities for Linux in areas such as drones, robots, automotive computers, IoT gizmos, 3D sensing, modular phones, and much more. For those worried that ELC is skimping on the basics as it explores the more colorful sides of Linux, worry not, as there are still plenty of sessions on booting, trace analysis, NAND support, PHY frameworks, power management, defragmenting, systemd, device tree, and toolchain.

22 comments

  1. Too Soon? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 2

    >booting, trace analysis, NAND support, PHY frameworks, power management, defragmenting, *systemd*, device tree, and toolchain.

    Let the ranting begin, right here.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    1. Re:Too Soon? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Giving the D to the system.

    2. Re:Too Soon? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 2

      Debugger is de person who sold us de system.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    3. Re:Too Soon? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      snark aside, systemd (implemented as a C binary) is promising in the embedded systems (routers, drones, iot gadgets) when compared with a ball of shell scripts (anyone who has looked at the scripts that run ddwrt or debian-installer knows what i'm talking about). it provides neat features like custom targets and socket activation that can be used intelligently on embedded systems for quick reproducible startups. i even think an ipc mechanism with actual abstraction (dbus) is warrented as a dependency.

      on the other hand, the dependencies on external libraries require extra attention in integration testing, and all those libraries have a memory and disk cost. maybe it's a wash.

    4. Re:Too Soon? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's common knowledge that systemD is not airworthy, well I guess it does create much hot air every time some spiky haired arch zealot defends the systemD...

    5. Re:Too Soon? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Systemd.. on an embedded chip.. haha. That is a joke. Right? An advanced full blown advance suite of sysVinit script take 348k of space. A minimal systemd takes 5M and support libraries like pthreads, udev, dbus etc. And yes systemd is still a piece of crap regardless of how much butter you use.

  2. Anyone else... by captnjohnny1618 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Anyone else *kinda* sick of hearing about drones? And 3d printing... Don't get me wrong. It's cool stuff, but we've kinda beaten it to death at this point.

    1. Re:Anyone else... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If someone drones about drones, does that make them a meta-drone?

      I'm sure there's a meme in here somewhere...

    2. Re:Anyone else... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      totally agree !

    3. Re:Anyone else... by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      Well we tried talking politics but people complain it's a nerd news site and we should be talking more nerd stuff. Like drones and 3D printers.

    4. Re:Anyone else... by AchilleTalon · · Score: 2

      What about 3-d printed drones?

      --
      Achille Talon
      Hop!
    5. Re:Anyone else... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about a drone that can 3d print?

    6. Re:Anyone else... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What about a drone with 3D printed parts?

    7. Re:Anyone else... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Anyone else *kinda* sick of hearing about drones? And 3d printing... Don't get me wrong. It's cool stuff, but we've kinda beaten it to death at this point.

      Hmmm... *skims summary* I know, let's talk systemd!

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Linux on devices is going to die by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    My prediciton is that within 5 years Linux will not be used on any of these: drones, robots, automotive computers or anywhere else that is safety critical. In fact, in general Linux is going to die in the embedded space because sel4 has been opened sourced and eChronros is about to be opened up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRndE7rSXiI

    1. Re:Linux on devices is going to die by amalcolm · · Score: 1

      Interesting ... did not know about these. Will take a look a little deeper. There are versions for popular SBCs apparently, so easy to get started ... I think Linux is very widespread, but as you say, there are alternatives .... pause for thought Thanks for the insight

      --
      Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
    2. Re:Linux on devices is going to die by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I disagree. If you want small robust functionality for an embedded system linux is the way to go. Couple that with things like PCL andor ROS and linux is not going away anytime soon for embedded systems.

    3. Re:Linux on devices is going to die by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When you say: "small robust functionality" that's where you're deceiving yourself. ie, Linux is *not* small and it is *not* robust and also is it *definitely not* secure. The requirement for robustness and security is why it will *never* take off in systems such as militiary dones, automated cars, medical devices, etc.

      Any company that deploys Linux in such a context is exposing is self to massive legal problems, because when it fails because someone has hacked it (which it is almost certainly likely to happen) and it results in death/injury then they will be sued out of existence.
      Specifically, Linux systems are known to be insecure and every week new bugs and exploits are revealed. Linux is worse than sel4 in security and robustness, this is by now a commonly known fact. That is, we know that sel4 is secure and robust because it has been mathemathically proven to be so, whereas Linux has no such guarantee. Since both are now open source (ie, you now have the same access to both since sel4 was open sourced half a year ago), if you use Linux and not sel4 and somebody dies as a result you have no defence in court to accusations of negligence, ie: you're screwed.

    4. Re:Linux on devices is going to die by unixisc · · Score: 1

      There are alternatives. Both Unix-like alternatives, such as Minix, NetBSD, as well as non-Unix alternatives like QNX. Incidentally, anyone know the status of Chorus - a microkernel that was around in the 90s and bought by Sun? At one time, it was used by USL as the basis of their microkernel.

  4. Conference Headlined By Drones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Conference Headlined By Drones

    Yes, that sounds like every conference I've been to.

  5. Microsoft sel4 .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "My prediciton is that within 5 years Linux will not be used on any of these: drones, robots, automotive computers or anywhere else that is safety critical. In fact, in general Linux is going to die in the embedded space because sel4 has been opened sourced and eChronros is about to be opened up"

    And once Microsoft joins the L4 developer forum, it'll be killed off just like TRON and replaced by Windows CE, else MS will start charging end user licenses for using Microsoft sel4.

  6. ramesh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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