Linux gains native RTOS emulation layer (LinuxDevices)

Linux gains native RTOS emulation layer (LinuxDevices)

Posted Mar 22, 2008 0:05 UTC (Sat) by simlo (subscriber, #10866)
Parent article: Linux gains native RTOS emulation layer (LinuxDevices)

The new Xenomai/SOLO add-on apparently does away with the co-kernel approach, instead integrating Xenomai's RTOS emulation layer more tightly with the Linux kernel itself. .... Luckily, thanks to PREEMPT_RT and other configuration options available in recent kernels, native Linux can offer pretty good real-time responsiveness these days.

It seems like PREEMPT_RT is winning people over after all. I remember participating in a flame war on lkml a few years back on the behalf of preempt_rt against the RTAI camp. I must admit they had some good technical arguments for having the co-kernel; but for ordinary realtime use the PREEMPT_RT is certainly good enough. For real applications I would guess you end up (re)writing a lot of driver/kernel code on your own no matter what you choose (PREEMPT_RT, Xenomia, VxWorks or another OS) to make sure that the code paths touched by your application are deterministic. There is no such thing as a free lunch, but even at the expensive restaurants it often turns out you have too cook yourself.

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