Embedded Linux Resource Catalog - Interview with ... - MontaVista

Industry Forecast
Embedded Linux Faces Low Power Demand and
Open Source Commercialization
by John Blyler
How does the latest version of embedded Linux address the need
for mobile, low-power applications? Jim Ready, the recognized
embedded Linux pioneer and MontaVista CTO and founder,
shared his insights in these issues during a recent interview with
Embedded Linux Resource Catalog. Here’s what he had to say.
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John Blyler: What challenges does Monta Vista’s Linux 6
development platform face in supporting newer embedded
hardware processor and operating systems like Intel’s Atom
chip and Moblin OS?
Jim Ready: To answer that you must first realize that not every
user of the Atom processor will use Moblin. Even Intel admits
that, as much as they think that Atom will do well in the netbook
market, their processor is targeted for the larger market of connected
devices – everything else besides netbook computers.
One of the charms of the personal computer (PC) market is that
it is a very narrow market. Conversely, the general embedded
market has no single mega-high-volume application. One historical
example is that, with the initial realization of the 286
machine many years ago, Intel believed that the PC market
would be No. 21 (or so) on the list of potential volume producers.
They expected industrial automation to yield the highest market
volume – not the PC. They were wrong, pleasantly.
The full circle part of this is story is that they seem to be saying
the same thing about Atom, i.e., as successful as it may be in
netbooks, the total volume of Atom will be higher in the miriad
of connected device applications than in netbook computers
– connected devices like Kiosk displays in supermarkets, medical
instruments, and the usual classic wide range of embedded
devices. Regardless of how the actual market trends play out,
supporting the process presents different challenges than supporting
the Moblin operating system.
Having said that, Moblin may be a very good starting point
for some applications, even in the connected devices space.
That’s one reason why our Linux 6 extends support to Moblin
by supplying a combination of source code and an open source
management system, essentially collecting all of the pieces
that allow Moblin to be built. Naturally, you can include your
own special software code as well. It’s analogous to an ASSP
in the semiconductor world. Linux 6 is an application specific
OS management environment that includes Linux, Moblin
and customer unique pieces.
One example of an application specific requirement is real time
operation. Did you know that Moblin does have real time capability?
They just don’t bother to test it and turn it on or integrate
the latest patches, but we do. A netbook may or may not care about
that. But some other device may have real time requirements.
Going back to the ASSP analogy, you might say that our
embedded Linux development environment is sort of the
TSMC for software. Intel is now licensing the Atom core at
the TSMC foundry so others can build their own system-onchip
(SoC) based on the Atom architecture. One reason that
they do this is because Intel cannot predict all the different
configurations of Atom that people might use. We experience
the same challenge with our embedded Linux platform. Users
have the capability through the integration environment of
Monta Vista’s Linux 6 to configure and maintain their own
instance of Linux, Moblin, and/or open source software that is
unique to their requirements, to their products.
John Blyler: Is it like an IDE but for the operating system?
Jim Ready: It’s more around source code management and
change and build management systems, but on steroids. If you
go to openembedded.com and you grab one of those at any
instances, because of the churn of open source the probability
of that actually working is very low. It can range from “working
perfectly” to “oh my gosh” because there are dead links. It’s
hard for volunteers to keep this going.
Monta Vista 6 is the configuration management and infrastructure
for our assemblage for all the software that we supply in an
open system, such that customers can insert their own selection
from open source and or their own stuff in an environment that
keeps that consistent and builds are repeatable. What we provide
is fully tested. It’s under our control and works.
It’s getting this front end of very intriguing open source into a
more regularized and commercialized – in a sense, more normal
– software process that people would expect to have for their
software. If one presumes that open source is just perfect software
out there for the taking, it’s not true.
John Blyler: It also has ultra fast book time, correct?
Jim Ready: Sony became a customer and an investor very early
on in the process and the CTO of Sony told me a story. They
had been trying to get Microsoft to get them a version of CE
that was suitable for consumer electronics, meaning that when
you push the button for your TV you expect it to come up
quickly. Microsoft was unresponsive. They didn’t mind that it
took two minutes to boot up.
www.eecatalog.com/embeddedlinux

With phones, speed is legally required. Your phone must make
a 911 call quickly. It has to happen in 10 seconds in some countries,
so fast boot times are important. We’ve been specializing
in how to do that.
What people forget is these are not 3GHz Pentium PCs. They’re
400 MHz chips, which are not intrinsically fast. So to get something
to boot in a second requires very careful management and
full utilization of the hardware. And when we say that it’s not a
subterfuge, it’s all the way up to process level with a real application
is running using real Linux and lots of parallization.
John Blyler: Some of that must be prioritization, right?
Jim Ready: It can be. But the point is there is no one thing for
fast boot. There is no sub module. It’s a design activity based
upon what you have on hand.
John Blyler is the Editorial Director of Extension
Media, which publishes Chip Design and Embedded
Intel magazine, plus over 36 EECatalog Resource
Catalogs in vertical market areas. He has coauthored
several books on technology (Wiley and
Elsevier). John has over 23 years systems engineering
hardware-software experience in the electronics
industry. He remains an affiliate professor in Systems
Engineering at Portland State University.
Embedded Linux Resource Guide 2010