Migrate embedded software from Linux to RTOS

-- EDN, 1/6/2000

You've heard of Red Hat; now, meet Blue Cat. Blue Cat is Lynx Real-Time Systems' initiative to support use of Linux in the embedded-system domain and to provide links to fully real-time operating systems (RTOSs). BlueCat Linux is a version of the OS for embedded PowerPC and Pentium applications. The company based the open-source, royalty-free Blue Cat on Red Hat Linux. Lynx scaled down Blue Cat's Linux's footprint for embedded systems and has subjected it to the same certification process that the company uses for its RTOS.

As with other Linux code, Lynx will feed bug fixes for the embedded version to the Linux community. An open development environment supports Red Hat Linux running on a host machine and cross-development to the Lynx OS on a target machine. Lynx rewrote its application-binary interface to achieve real-time Linux, which will be Linux-compatible in Version 4.0. The company will release that version in midyear, so that programmers can run applications for Linux on Blue Cat without recompiling. You can run Red Hat alongside BlueCat and maintain hard, real-time performance. You can therefore develop applications in Linux on an open-source, royalty-free basis and then migrate those modules that require real-time performance to Lynx OS on the conventional licence basis. Technical support, consulting, and training services complete the package; Lynx says it will bring the same focussed support to Linux that it has offered with its RTOS

Lynx Real-Time Systems Europe, +33 1 30 85 06 00, www.lynx.com.

-by Graham Prophet