How does the latest version of embedded Linux address the need for mobile applications? Jim Ready, the recognized embedded Linux pioneer and MontaVista (www.mvista.com) 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.

John Blyler: What challenges does MontaVista 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 MontaVista 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. MontaVista 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-on-chip (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 MontaVista 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.

MontaVista Linux 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 Windows CE – the Windows OS for embedded systems – 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.

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: One final question: I see that MontaVista now supports Google’s Android. Is this similar to your Intel Atom and Moblin support?

Jim Ready: Yes, exactly. Our insight suggested that Linux would be very important in mobile systems. Indeed, Linux has become so successful that the embedded solution has moved up the software layer, extending to both Moblin and Android. For us, it’s really more of the same. Let me explain.

When Linux was first introduced, a customer had the choice of either using commercial software or maintaining 6 million lines of open source Linux code, including the kernel and tools. Now, Android comes out and the same situation occurs, except instead of 6 million lines of code (LoC) it’s 60 million LoC of Android prototype-level software that needs to be maintained.

The role of commercialization has gotten more important since the body of prototypelevel software that customers are exposed to has grown even larger.

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 co-authored 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.