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Meet Linux's Little Brother Zephyr, a Tiny Open Source IoT RTOS (linuxgizmos.com)
DeviceGuru writes: The Linux Foundation has launched the Zephyr Project, to foster an open source, small footprint, modular, scalable, connected, real-time OS for IoT devices. The Zephyr Project's RTOS implements both a small footpoint microkernel and an even tinier nanokernel, and is the result of Wind River contributing its Rocket RTOS kernel to the Zephyr Project. (Wind's Rocket RTOS will now become a downstream commercial distribution based on Zephyr sources.) To get a sense of Zephyr's benefit, its nanokernel is said to be able to run in as little as 10KB of RAM on 32-bit microcontrollers, whereas a minimalistic Linux implementation like uClinux needs upwards of 200KB. The Linux Foundation hopes to see cross-project collaboration between the Zephyr and Linux communities. Technical details are at the Zephyr site.
How fast does it power up? This is one area of computers that makes absolutely no sense. If something can be stored, why can't it be stored in a ready-to-run state? Why aren't drivers on ROM inside each device? My radio comes on instantly, so should the damn computer. We're back to the days of having to wait for the TV to warm up, shouldn't be that way.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This is really an 'OS' in the loosest sense. The processors it targets (mostly ARM Cortex M) do not have a memory manager, so all these things really do is provide a basic multi-threading system, which is actually pretty trivial to implement on a micro-controller if you can be bothered. I mean, a decent embedded unicode handling library or buddy allocator is a more complicated endeavour, but not as media worthy as saying your wrote a whole 'OS'.
For what it's worth, FreeRTOS has been providing a lightweight and portable kernel that basically does what this does for about a decade now. Like windriver, they also try to leverage the exposure they get from the free code to sell their commercial version.
The interesting thing though is that embedded processing power is really jumping along at an incredible pace now. To be honest, I think in another five year anything that requires connectivity or has a screen will just be using a Linux derivative (or QNX). Memory and processors are becoming ridiculously cheap, and in many cases the few dollars saved by using a resourced constrained chip are not worth the effort of having to port a graphics library, driver etc etc.