[ale] Linux vs XP Embedded
John Trostel
jtrostel at mindspring.com
Tue Feb 24 11:25:12 EST 2004
I'd have to agree with Bjorn. If you need real hard deadlines, then use
a real RTOS (real-time OS). QNX is a very good choice. It is
self-hosted (no need to cross compile), and would be more familiar to a
linux programmer than VxWorks would be. VxWorks is the MS of the RTOS
world, so you end up paying quite a bit for their development
environment. On the other hand, everyone and their brother will have
drivers for VxWorks too.
I wrote the SW for quite an extensive DAQ system using pSOS. pSOS was a
competitor of VxWorks before being swallowed up by them and digested. I
had looked at a variety of OS's before going with pSOS. The decision to
go with pSOS was, in the end, pushed by the upper management types. I
will forever try to avoid such a situation in the future. pSOS was
probably the worst possible choice (except for a RT enhanced version of
Windows) that could have been made. We decided that pSOS stood for
'Pretty Shi**y Operating System'. That said, once completed, the system
(consisting of over 15 interacting CPU's and innumerable DAQ-type cards)
would run unattended, sucking up data and controlling the experiment,
for weeks on end. Basically until something else failed.
--
John Trostel
jtrostel at mindspring.com
Atlanta, GA USA
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