[Domotica] Is Embedded Linux a Bust?
Jesus Cea Avion
jcea at argo.es
Fri Dec 7 11:22:34 CET 2001
http://www.embedded.com/story/OEG20011130S0034
Embedded Systems Programming Editor in Chief Michael Barr
recently forwarded me an intriguing letter from a consultant who
had attempted to build a business helping companies incorporate
Linux into their embedded systems. The effort was a complete
failure; a year of work had turned up only two companies actually
using Linux in the embedded arena, so the consultant returned to
traditional real-time operating systems where there's plenty of
work and lots of money.
What gives? If you believe the magazines, it appears anyone not
using Linux is a dinosaur, an atavistic throwback doomed to write
miserable little 8051 assembly language programs forever. At the
local bookstore an entire shelf of computer magazine headlines
scream “Linux Forever!” All tout this OS as the solution to
everything that ails us, from hackers to global warming.
Unfortunately, Linux is an unassailable icon. Those who cast
aspersions on it are immediately branded as wrong-thinking
heretics. Yet it's just an operating system. That's it -- a tool,
something that allows us to build real systems. In the embedded
world Linux is even less than an OS; it can't even manage real
time events -- at least not in the native distribution. Unless Linux
is bolted on top of a traditional embedded RTOS, your system
might have a killer file system but be unable to handle
asynchronous events in a timely manner.
In my travels around the embedded world I see a huge number of
developers working with all sorts of real time operating systems,
from very simple home-brew taskers to complete top-of-the-line
commercial products with protocol stacks and a wealth of
features. But Linux seems to be a phantom OS. Plenty of folks
have adopted it as a development platform, but only rarely do I
see it incorporated into a product. Sure, there are some notable
exceptions. Some set-top boxes, PDAs, and other products are
being shipped today with Linux kernels. But Linux-based seem to
be in the minority, with traditional RTOSes still, by far, dominating
the OS space.
Much as politicians are led by their polls, publishers use extensive
surveys to see where the market is heading and what sort of
editorial content best addresses readers' needs. But surveys are
notoriously fickle. The 2000 ESP subscriber study showed that
12% of the 525 respondents used Linux in their 16- (!) or 32-bit
systems in the last year. Thirty-eight percent are considering it.
With almost 100,000 embedded design starts each year, that
suggests a huge market, enough to make any embedded Linux
provider salivate and venture capitalists feed the frenzy with wild
abandon.
But almost a year has elapsed since that study, and there's no
way, based on my imprecise observations, that 30 to 40,000
projects were done this year with this OS. Lineo announced a
layoff in September. One of MontaVista's white papers discusses
60-microsecond interrupt latencies on an 800MHz Pentium. Yikes!
Is that CPU really indicative of the embedded world? I doubt it.
Linux is a big beast that needs a lot of memory and processor
cycles. It does bring some pretty substantial benefits to some
systems: communications stacks, a fabulous file system, and
Unix-like interactivity and reliability. But is this a substantial part of
the embedded space?
What roll do you think Linux will play in embedded systems
development in the near future?
Jack G. Ganssle is a lecturer and consultant on embedded
development issues. He conducts seminars on embedded
systems and helps companies with their embedded challenges. He
founded two companies specializing in embedded systems.
Contact him at jack at ganssle.com. His website is
www.ganssle.com.
Take the poll
Reader Feedback
I totally disagree. First of all, the very first question we must
answer is this: what is embedded? It isn't what it used to be
10-15 years ago. In the past, there was no way you could even
talk about an OS with the 8051 or any other processor, because
there would be scarcely any memory for the application on a
target yet alone for the OS. Now, things are changing and from
where I am standing, the line that separates "embedded" and
other types of systems is quickly fading away. So, it is no longer a
constraint to require more power from hardware, in fact it is a
necessity!
My second point is the level of support you would be receiving for
any commercial RTOS. Most of the time, you have to deal with
the marketing people who don't really know what they are talking
about, and whatever you ask, they will answer as they have been
taught: a big yes! Wish things were so bright! But when the thing
starts breaking down, they will not be there for help and it would
take infinitely long for you to get to the real people who know
their thing. This is not the case for Linux. You will get help from the
user community without any cost, and people will share their code
with you. Just for the fun of it! If you want to change things, you
are absolutely free to do so. With a commercial OS, would the
writer care to give an example on any of these advantages? From
my point of view, it's only about one thing: making things better
and Linux leads the way on that!
Utku K.
I find it amazing that someone could spend a year searching and
only turn up 2 companies doing embedded Linux work. My
company doesn't cater to the embedded Linux niche, and over
the same time period we've gotten two clients locally in a town of
100,000 that are doing embedded Linux work. In both cases,
they came to us...
I obviously can't critique his work-finding plans, since no details
were given. It just seems odd.
Sean Reifschneider
MTS
tummy.com, ltd.
Politics and perception -- from what I have seen, these are the
two biggest reasons that Linux is not more frequently being
adopted into target embedded systems.
First, politics: I think that you will find many company's will
generally be in favor of using a robust, yet free operating system
as opposed to paying money for one, hence the high polling
numbers. In contrast a high interest from individuals being polled, I
think you will find that corporate support will slack off considerably
when it means that a corporation will need to come out and
support an operating system in direct competition with, say, Wind
River. What Company really wants to damage their relationship
with their current OS vendor? The company I just left has, in the
past two years gone through not one but two Linux vendors and
claims to support Linux on their target systems. However, never
have they shipped a Linux based product, and in that two years, I
believe I have seen 1 small press release on the subject
announcing a limited partnership. Not surprisingly, the have a
long-standing partnership with other OS vendors who have no
interest in putting up with competition.
Second, perception: Linus Torvalds wrote his first post regarding
Linux to comp.os.minix on August 25, 1991, so to most of the
senior engineers who are making the "what OS do we use"
decision, Linux is a baby. These people have cut their teeth on
VxWorks, Nucleus, etc. The marketing team for these more
established OSes have marketing down to a science. Talk to a
senior engineer at your company and ask him if he or she would
want to use Linux in the next product you put out. I think you will
find that these more senior people are interested in Linux, but are
also frightened that Linux will not have the same features or
abilities that your more well known OSes do. Its most likely an
incorrect belief, but nevertheless, Linux is still new and strange to
the men and women making the big decisions. And the Marketing
groups from the companies that charge 50K for a yearlong OS
license aren't clearing anything up for them.
That all being said, in conclusion: Politics and Perception have one
shining attribute that squarely comes down in favor of Linux: they
change 10-15 years from now, when you, I, and the other new
kids on the block are the ones figuring out what exactly this
product should look like, read this article again. My money says
you'll wonder why anyone ever paid for an OS.
Neil Horman
Software Engineer
LVL7 Systems
I am currently working on a Linux based embedded project. It
started in March '01. Originally it was to be the development and
support system for the deployed LynxOS systems. There were so
many issues with LynxOS, that we are looking to replace the
fielded systems with Linux systems.
Already the customer has proposed a low cost gateway system
using Linux. The LynxOS just costs too much.
There have been issues that we have run into using LynxOS, that
we could have probably resolved using the source code, but it
wasn't available. Waiting for the folks From Lynx to get the fix
take care of is very time consuming. I had an issue with the
semaphores in Linux, a couple web searches, and I found the
solution, a small patch. Sure I gotta compile it in, but at least I
have an answer today!
Linux will happen.
Tom Brusehaver
Contract Engineer
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