The RTAI project has released Version 1.6 for Linux 2.2.16 and 2.2.17. Beside some minor fixes, it contains:

• Improvements in the dynamic memory manager.
  
• POSIX conditional variables timed waits.
  
• Task stack checking function.
  
• 8259 PIC top priority setting.
  
• Binary semaphores and conditional variables, added natively to RTAI.
  
• A general purpose UNIX server to allow use of Linux system calls from RTAI-LXRT hard real time applications in user space.
  
• New examples to demonstrate what above, and other things as well.
  
• Multi list schedulers, for improved performances on less powerful machines and small embedded systems.

The Real Time Application Interface (RTAI) is a comprehensive real-time Linux enhancement that is usable both for uniprocessors (UPs) and symmetric multi processors (SMPs), that allows the use Linux in many “hard real-time” applications. As an option, RTAI's “LXRT” allows the control of real-time tasks, using all of RTAI's hard real-time system calls, from within Linux memory-protected user space resulting in soft real-time combined with fine-grained task scheduling. The RTAI project is based at the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Aerospaziale Politecnico di Milano (DIAPM).

 
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