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RE: How does people think of ecos's future compare to so m any existing RTOS? eg.RT-Linux, Embedded Linux, VxWorks, etc.. Welcome t o discuss
- From: Iztok Zupet <iztok dot zupet at vsr dot si>
- To: Robert Cragie <rcc at jennic dot com>
- Cc: ecos at navosha dot com, Doug Fraser <dfraser at photuris dot com>, Qiang Huang <jameshq at liverpool dot ac dot uk>, eCos-discuss <ecos-discuss at sources dot redhat dot com>
- Date: 02 Oct 2002 14:32:35 +0200
- Subject: RE: [ECOS] How does people think of ecos's future compare to so m any existing RTOS? eg.RT-Linux, Embedded Linux, VxWorks, etc.. Welcome t o discuss
- References: <NDBBLOIOMLKELOJBAPAGMECLCPAA.rcc@jennic.com>
On Wed, 2002-10-02 at 13:41, Robert Cragie wrote:
> I think it is worth considering what sort of system eCos is targeted at. It
> seems to me that eCos does overlap considerably with embedded Linux for
> embedded 32 bit processor designs and that embedded Linux may be preferred
> simply because it is 'trendier' than eCos and there has been more stuff
> written for Linux. For example, the Sharp Zaurus puts a big emphasis on the
> fact that it is Linux-based, and the Trolltech Qtopia windowing system was
> leveraged from Trolltech's desktop Qt system. I doubt eCos (at the moment)
> would be a strong selling point, plus (AFAIK) Microwindows doesn't really
> have any supporting apps. If you consider the target market for eCos is
VxWorks and derivatives, I believe have a Gui interface and a
corresponding GUI designer, whilst Micowindows provides only the GUI
interface and not a decently working designer (currently, but some projects are already there).
However, You can use an eCos running black-box for the work horse and
put the GUI on a Windows or Linux machine, which can in addition do the
bookkeeping or drive a database. This greatly simplifies the HW design
in some cases.
> smaller, resource limited embedded systems, then I guess it is preferable to
> Linux, however it would be nice if eCos could run on 8 bit micros like PIC,
> 8051 etc. Many small embedded systems still use 8 bit micros and new SoC
> designs are appearing with 8 bit micros in them, as they offer small silicon
> real estate, low power etc. This would then extend eCos in an area where it
> is, IMHO, innately suitable due to its scalability and low resource
> requirements. Could this be done, or is the lack of gcc support an issue?
>
The lack of gcc is the one of main issues. The only currently working
gcc for 8 bit micros is AVR-gcc.
The eCos kernel is not suitable for AVR or any 8bit machine without a
proper amount of memory (AVR-s have only up to 4K of built-in memory and
up to 64K of external), a new tiny-eCos should be designed, however the
CDL configuration scheme could be kept there.
iz
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