The Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) held in San Francisco during the week of March 11, 2002 was expected to draw over 15,000 attendees from all facets of the embedded systems market. Despite the much slower than anticipated economic conditions, event organizers report that attendance reached around 12,000. In contrast to the somewhat attenuated turnout, this year's ESC product and technology expo was the largest ever, occupying two large halls in the sprawling Moscone Convention Center complex.

From the embedded Linux perspective, the really BIG news this year is that embedded Linux isn't news anymore! Embedded Linux is now universally counted among the top three “must have” embedded OSes, which virtually all embedded hardware (chips, boards, systems), middleware, apps, and tools must support. The other two are generally VxWorks and one or another flavor of “Embedded Windows”. Beyond Embedded Linux, VxWorks, and Embedded Windows, it now appears that all the other embedded OSes have been lumped into the nondescript category of “other” — and are supported only when a major customer is willing to provide sufficient funding or purchase commitment.

Here, then, are some highlights from ESC 2002 San Francisco — from the Embedded Linux perspective . . .

Embedded Linux Consortium kicks off embedded Linux platform standard

The Embedded Linux Consortium held an open technical meeting on March 12, during which the two-year-old group moved beyond its initial role of primarily evangelizing the adoption of Embedded Linux, to one of starting to create a unified Embedded Linux platform specification (“ELC Platform Spec”). There were over 125 attendees, and although no sign-in sheet was circulated, the RSVPs reportedly included representatives of some of the world's largest and most influential software, semiconductor, and electronics companies, including: HP, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, and Wind River.

Some observers have complained that the process of moving the ELC Platform Spec forward is moving far too slowly to be useful to the market, while others are glad that a proper foundation (the Intellectual Property Agreement, or “IPA”) is now in place, allowing large corporations to fully participate in the spec development process. In any case, the ELC's initial bylaws prohibited standards development activities, so a formal document was certainly necessary to enable this important change to the group's charter.

The ELC meeting's two keynote presentations are available online:

• The Future of Embedded Linux (and the evolving role of the Embedded Linux Consortium), by Rick Lehrbaum, Founder and Executive Editor, LinuxDevices.com

• Update on Embedded Linux in Japan (and EMBLIX, the Japan Embedded Linux Consortium), by Dr. Tatsuo Nakajima, Chairman of the Japan Embedded Linux Consortium (EMBLIX)

The ELC has now formed its first working group, chartered to develop the new ELC Platform Spec, and is encouraging volunteers to join the efforts of finalizing the spec with an eye towards a 1.0 release by the end of 2002. Proposals for other working groups, having orientations such as real-time Linux, security, wireless API's, high availability, device drivers, etc. have also been solicited by the ELC.

A quick tour of the ESC vendor expo

A total of 39 companies listed themselves under the category of “Embedded Linux” in the ESC show guide. Here is a sampling of some of the many Embedded Linux oriented demonstrations, technologies, and products that I came across at the show . . .

• Arizona Cooperative Power — demonstrated uClinux running on a new Hitachi H8S-2148AF development platform in Hitachi's booth. The board is described as “especially designed for uClinux . . . and intended to make it easy for educators, students, and companies to explore uClinux running on the H8S without incurring a hefty equipment expense.” It is based on a 33MHz H8S-2674R and includes 8MB of SDRAM, 4MB of Flash, and a 10Mbits/s Ethernet port, and will be sold for $199.

• China MobileSoft — made their first appearance in North America at ESC 2002, where they demonstrated mLinux, their Embedded Linux distribution. They also showcased their Embedded Linux GUI (mGUI) and microbrowser (mBrowser). Prior to the recent opening of a sales office in the US, MobileSoft's business has been focused on manufacturers of smartphones, PDAs, and set-top boxes in China and Taiwan.

• Lineo — held a press conference to announce several new partnerships and strategies associated with the set-top box, residential gateway, and handheld computer markets. One interesting announcement was of a new Linux-based PDA (the “Kaii”, mentioned briefly in last month's column) which is being developed in India, and which has a software stack similar to that of the Sharp Zaurus. Lineo explained that they are in the process of repositioning their products and resources around three key markets — smart handhelds (including PDAs and smartphones); digital media (including TV set-top boxes); and residential gateways — a theme that was reflected in the company's ESC booth demos, which were much more oriented towards application-specific solutions than generalized tools.

• LynuxWorks — announced the release of LynxOS version 4.0, which is said to feature Linux ABI compatibility. This means that LynxOS, a proprietary real-time operating system (RTOS) which previously offered a high degree of API compatibility with Linux (allowing it to run certain Linux apps after recompilation), should now be able to run some unmodified Linux binaries. Linux programs demonstrated running (unmodified) on LynxOS included the Opera browser and Quake. Note that this capability apparently requires that the Linux apps use dynamically linked libraries, since special versions of glibc library functions are required. LynuxWorks calls such programs “well behaved applications”, and points out that the LSB requires dynamic linking of libraries.

• Microtronix — (in Altera's booth) demonstrated a Linux-based board support package for Altera's ARM-based Excalibur development kit, which allows development of multi-processor systems combining Altera's Excalibur hard-core “stripe” along with one or more of Altera's Nios soft-core embedded processors in the programmable logic portion of the device. The Microtronix support includes a multi-processing mezzanine board with multiple expansion headers to support Ethernet and display adapter cards.

• MontaVista Software — had their usual large pavilion with numerous hardware/software demos, including: the MontaVista High Availability Framework; the Visual Age Micro Edition Java VM equipped with a Java AWT based on Qt/Embedded; a digital set-top box reference design based on IBM's PowerPC 405GP processor; MontaVista Linux running on the Sharp Zaurus PDA; a demo of the latest real-time features (and supported processors) of MontaVista Linux version 2.1. One really cool demo was of a real live Linux-powered soft drink vending machine (the USA Technologies “ePort”), powered by a RadiSys StrongARM-based embedded SBC running MontaVista Linux. MontaVista also announced the receipt of an equity investment from Panasonic Digital Concepts Center (PDCC), a subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

• Red Hat — demonstrated their embedded software family (Embedded Linux, eCos, RedBoot, GNUPro tools) and showcased some interesting design wins, including: Brother printer (based on eCos), Symbol Wireless barcode scanner (Linux), Rymic ruggedized vehicle computer (Linux), Ericsson's Screenphone (Linux), Sony's PS2 (GNUPro), Intel's residential router (Linux), Iomega's Hip Zip (eCos), and Delphi's auto telematics system (eCos). One particularly interesting demo was of the results of a recent investigation by Red Hat's Clark Williams, which compares two popular ways to improve kernel Linux preemption latency — the preemption patch (pioneered by MontaVista) and the low-latency patch (pioneered by Ingo Molnar). Which performs best? Both, as indicated by this detailed whitepaper written by Williams.

• REDSonic — showed the capabilities of RED-Builder, their GUI-based embedded Linux Image Creator and Integrated Development Environment (IDE), demonstrating the point-and-click simplicity of using it to build, download, and debug complete, small footprint Linux systems for a wide range of embedded targets. Target platforms demonstrated included Ampro's Encore 500 (x86), ITE 8152EVB (StrongARM), and MIPS 32-Bit Malta Board (MIPS). REDSonic also demonstrated SecureSOHO, a software stack for resource-constrained Linux-based gateway/firewall devices, which provides extensive networking and security features along with an easy-to-use end-user configuration/control interface.

• RidgeRun — (in Texas Instruments' booth) demonstrated DSPLinux, an embedded Linux distribution and toolkit for TI's dual-core (RISC/DSP) system-on-chip processors. At ESC, RidgeRun announced that they have added dynamic linking support to uClibc. Previously, developers of systems based on MMU-less processors (e.g. ARM7) had hesitated to use embedded Linux due to concerns about the ability to keep their application code proprietary for various reasons such as partner licensing agreements or protecting trade secrets. Dynamically linking to the LGPL-licensed uClibc libraries eliminates that problem. The new uClibc dynamic link support is being made available as part of a new board support package for TI's TMS320VC5471 dual-core processor.

• TimeSys — despite the stormy economy, TimeSys rode a wave of good news to ESC, announcing the receipt of $15.5 million funding and issuing a press release declaring: “Pioneer of Embedded Systems Software Poised to Assume Industry Leadership Role”. Their booth featured four demos that showcased their board support packages (BSPs), which include support for the TimeSys Linux/GPL Embedded Linux distro and associated tool chains, Windows cross-hosting support, plus add-ons for real-time performance, quality-of-service CPU reservations, and real-time networking, running on a variety of processor architectures (x86, ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, UltraSparc, XScale, SuperH) and SBCs. The company also announced several new BSPs, and promised a steady stream of additional ones on an ongoing basis.

• Vitals System — (in Samsung's booth) demonstrated their family of “vLinux Developer Packages”, which are reference designs for Samsung's ARM7 and ARM9 based system-on-chip processors. The platforms include full source code and schematics, are sold for a one-time fee (without royalties), and are meant to provide “turnkey” designs for wireless LAN access points, SOHO routers, and wireless LAN ADSL modem routers.

ESC press release roundup

Finally, in case you missed any of the many announcements of products, services, and partnerships relating to Embedded Linux that accompanied the conference, here's a list of most of the headlines . . .

• Embedded Linux Market enters era of standardization
  
• Lineo announces Linux-based DVB set-top box platform
  
• Lineo SDK & BSB put Linux on IBM set-top box
  
• Lineo opens doors in India
  
• Lineo & Infomart announce Q2 launch for Kaii Linux PDA
  
• TimeSys unveils real-time embedded Linux BSP for UltraSPARC IIe
  
• TimeSys expands PowerPC, MIPS Embedded Linux Support
  
• TimeSys targets Embedded Linux leadership role
  
• TimeSys announces $15.5 Million in financing
  
• Red Hat to port GNUPro to Sanyo Xstormy16 processor
  
• Red Hat adds support for AltiVec-enabled PowerPCs
  
• MontaVista partner list tops 100
  
• Panasonic takes equity stake in MontaVista
  
• RidgeRun enables shared libraries on MMU-less Linux systems
  
• Device test/verification suite supports Linux-based devices
  
• Product adds 'easy-to-use' fault-tolerance to Embedded Linux apps
  
• Embedded Linux cashes in with new POS architecture
  
• Embedded Linux for Altera's SOPC Builder & ARM-based Excalibur
  
• uClinux demonstrated on a new Hitachi embedded platform
  
• Embedded Linux powers new VPN router appliance

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This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.